Paula Clendenin

Clay Center for the Arts, Charleston, WV, solo exhibition Tools as Art, Clay Center for the Arts, Charleston, WV, The Mississippi Museum of Arts, Jackson Miss. The Mobile Museum of Arts, Mobile, Alabama The Cummer Museum of Art, Jacksonville, Fla. The National Museum of the Arts, Washington, DC Prints by Contemporary Women Artists, Hollins College,... Roanoke, VA Juliet Art Museum, Clay Center for the Arts, Charleston, WV West Virginia University Permanent Collection, Morgantown, WV Paula Clendenin Personal Symbols: 1990 - 2011 In the statements below I explore the visual elements found in my prints and paintings, how they came to be, disappear and resurface again. This piece includes comments on 21 years of my work right up until the last few weeks.Crossroads For many years, every time I thought I was going to leave West Virginia it pulled me back. It kept me working on my art. In the early 90s, when my grandmother was very old and in poor health, I came back here to live again. Simultaneously, Ric Ambrose offered me an exhibit at Sunrise Museum. This was the installation show (influenced by the Rothko Chapel) with the enormous water and rock installation. It was an exhibit that allowed me to look at things differently. When you do, they change. That grounded me.After the Sunrise show, there were lots of art offers and I realized I had many opportunities and I had to fulfill them. West Virginia State College (now University) offered me a one year position (which eventually lead to tenure). That was 21 years ago. Inside Stories I had to ask myself the question, If one is going to paint, what do you paint?. My good friend Cindy Neuschwander kept sending me images of her new work - self portraits. I had never done self portraits. That is how I started going beyond the symbols and did the body shapes which evolved into ghosts. They would start out very personal as I traced my own shape and then evolve into less personal works concentrating on color and shape. Old Stories My first remembrance of the symbols was in ...Read More