“Mixing Media”
“Think About the Bubbles”
Artist Statement:
Wellfleet has always been present in my art. I sold my first paintings here in Wellfleet, across the street at the Fox’s Den. I was 12. They were seagulls and owls on oyster shack shingles I found on the beach by our family home. I’ve been picking things up and making it art ever since.
I work in a variety of disciplines and this show features my found art assemblages, mixed media paintings, and hanging wire sculptures. All share the common thread of Wellfleet and its delicate ecological beauty as both subject and inspiration.
My assemblages are primarily found object constructions, the “found” things collected on Wellfleet shores over the years. My newest, “Our Lady of Guadalupe and Her Pal, Juan Diego” includes driftwood timbers from derelict boats beached in the harbor. It is inspired by this venue’s previous incarnation as Our Lady of Lourdes, where I spent many a Sunday morning attending Mass.
Among the found treasure: hammered metal, rusty nails, silvery driftwood, and horseshoe crab tails are woven together into iconic totems of hanging sculpture or wall constructions in celebration of the essence of this special town.
Likewise, my paintings, informed by Renaissance holy works, are built layer upon layer of deep rich color, geometric pattern, metal leaf, crackled surface and sometimes rust, to form abstract landscapes reminiscent of clear starry seaside nights that make this place a sacred land. A place to respect, preserve and protect.
With a formal education in studio art and art history, Ormsby also studied with Michael Kramer of Gilders Studio through the Smithsonian Resident Associate Program in Washington, DC. Her work is in private and corporate collections throughout the US. She shows her work in Wellfleet, and Virginia.
