STATEMENT
In my approach to painting I strive to capture the simple beauty of life on Cape Cod.
My compositions capture the changing energy of the ocean, which can transform from destructive turbulence one day to a sea that lures tranquility the next. The brilliant colors of the Cape, the reflected light and the simplicity of nature’s forms move me to explore and create altering rich visual experiences.
This is my spirit in painting
BIO
About the Artist
Born into a blue collar Irish/German environment in the old Coytesville section of Fort Lee, New Jersey, Agnes had an early appreciation and desire to capture the tones and textures of the world around her. Showing early artistic talent and endeavors through her teenage years. She was heavily influenced by coastal summers spent at the family cottage in the Highlands at the Jersey shore; leaving the day school ended and returning just before the first day of the new school year.
But life interfered; with the too early loss of her mother to breast cancer; working to pay her way and studying full time to earn a Nursing degree; and six years as a single parent. By the time her 3 daughters had fledged; she had advanced herself through night school with first a bachelors degree and then postgraduate credits, raising a breeding dog for Guiding Eyes for the Blind; Agnes’s talents had been dormant. A close friend and aspiring artist led her to reclaim her passion. She became a member of the Ridgewood Art Institute–soon deciding that oil was the medium that best let her express the colors and vibrancy of the horizons before her.
Agnes has a lifelong love of the coast and the oceans–from her childhood in the Highlands to Cape Cod where she has been coming for 40 years.
In 2000 she became a resident of Wellfleet, Mass on outer Cape Cod
Here her skills evolved under the influence of the many Cape artists with whom she has taken classes and through participation in workshops sponsored by Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill, the Provincetown Art Association and Museum (PAAM), and the Cape Cod Art Museum.
Studying with and in many cases befriending artists with a wide variety of styles and sometimes divergent artistic philosophies including Bill Davis, Anne Packard, Lance Walker, Joseph McGurl, Robert Roark, and especially Robert Cardinal.
She was further motivated in her artistic development by Christie Scheele (http://christiescheele.com/) of Woodstock, New York through workshops and friendship. Rick Fleury (http://www.rickfleury.com/) of Eastham, Mass has been the most constant and significant influence to her minimalist approach with vibrant workshops, significant critique, mentoring, and friendship.
Currently she has 2 studios–one in New Jersey where she looks out over her tomato, vegetable and herb gardens—the second is in Wellfleet facing the peace and promise of the Atlantic Ocean and to the south the rolling ever changing dunes of the coastal highlands.
