Little Absurdities: Into the Woods by donna e perkins, represented by Archway Gallery
Part of perkins' Gone Awry 2025 show
Watercolor & Pen

12 x 9 in

Silent auction items will close on Monday, Sept 28 at 11:59 am. Winners will be notified via email. 

ABOUT GONE AWRY COLLECTION
Perkins was not able to create the exhibition she planned, of larger oil paintings. When a vertebra collapsed, she could no longer stand at her easel for any length of time, she returned to her watercolor and pen drawings. It had all “Gone Awry”.

The watercolor drawings are a way of working which is portable and can be done while sitting. On a watercolor block, Perkins lays down watercolor and allows it to run and bleed. In pen she traces the fractal-like lines created by the drying edges of the pigment. She then compulsively adds more lines to complete the composition.

DONNA E PERKINS ARTIST STATEMENT
Making art is, for me, an act of defiance. It is my rebellion from the practical. It is my rejection of the culture in which the practical and the religious formed restrictive rules and beauty was suspect. It is an escape into a world beyond the control of others. It produces objects which quietly take up space, objects which haunt walls.

I would like my art to make a strong social statement that would make the world a better place, but I don't know how to do that. Perhaps there is something vaguely political about going one's own way in the pursuit of the secular pleasure of paint.

I'm primarily an abstract painter, but I've experimented with other mediums because friendships provided opportunities to work with dancers, chorographers, photographers, videographers and writers. Working with dancers has been especially important to the development of my approach to painting. The painting process is, for me, a passionate, wordless dance with the tactile sensuality of paint. There is an element of play and experimentation in my work. Often the work is brightly colored, but it can be darkly despondent.

I'm fascinated with the beauty found in the non-precious objects of the ordinary. If I were to write a one word artists statement, it would be "Look!" If I were to stretch it to two words, it would be “Look! Wow!"

On a more practical note, I've lived in Houston, or in the shadow of Houston, for years. It's a rich environment for an artist. I've been drawing and painting since I was a child. My work can be seen at Archway Gallery.