Members’ Gallery: January 2016

Artist's Biography—Peggy Wickham was born near Cleveland, Ohio, and moved many times with her husband while he was in the US military, and later when the company he worked for relocated him, . She moved to Fredericksburg in 2008 and found in the local art community a great climate for creating art.

She works primarily as a painter, but likes to create in other mediums as well, particularly textile pieces that incorporate 3 dimensional elements.

Her work is generally about nature, and that may be expressed as a variety of styles from impressionistic pieces to abstract ones. She has been very interested recently in experimenting with new techniques and mediums, resulting in pieces that are more abstract than some of her earlier work.

She has shown her work at Brush Strokes Gallery at 824 Caroline Street in Fredericksburg from 2012 to the present, at the Gallery at 915 in 2010, and has also had pieces at the FCCA, and Artful Dimensions. Her work may also be seen at Mary Washington Hospital, Stafford Hospital, and has been on display at some of the local libraries, as well as in restaurants and other retail shops around Fredericksburg. Upcoming shows in early 2016 will be at the FCCA in Fredericksburg and at England Run Library in Fredericksburg.

Her education as an artist began at the State University of New York, where she majored in Art Education with a focus in painting. She has continue her learning process in workshops around the country, with artists such as Linda Kemp, Sterling Edwards, Caroline Jasper, David Dunlop, and more.

She lives and works in Fredericksburg, VA where she has a studio in her home.

Artist's Statement—I am primarily a painter, although I often find in textiles a medium that allows me to get a different perspective of elements or art such as color, texture, volume, and line. Sometimes these pieces will be three dimensional. In any case, these forays into other media allow me to come back to painting and subtly change the way I approach the next creation.

I approach a blank canvas in two different ways. Sometimes I have a particular subject in mind, and head right into portraying that subject. Other times, I find myself approaching the blank canvas with a spirit of play, allowing the initial marks made to be done in a way that is about learning how the paint or other material will react. In this case, half of the piece “creates itself”. Once I have a piece I like, the task is to stop playing and allow the piece to “be”. The materials I use most often, are acrylic paints and standard canvases, but occasionally use a variety of variations in either surfaces and mediums, and love to combine mediums- from acrylic paint to watercolor, ink, gouache, and almost any medium that will stand the test of time. The same is true of the surfaces I use.

I am constantly trying new materials and methods, but of course use “Tried and True” methods most often. This is because they:

• work for accomplishing the goal I have in mind
• produce effects that are visually exciting or otherwise intriguing.
• are something new I must try, to experience, to learn, to compare to other methods.
• I create art because I find the creative part of me must be expressed. Sometimes a certain idea will come to me when seeing great art in a museum or even doing mundane things such as dropping off to sleep, driving, walking the dogs, or doing household tasks such as the dishes.
• I find it very relaxing be outdoors, pursuing a variety of activities such as hiking, biking, or walking through waves at the beach. This love finds it’s expression in my work, so I would say the strongest influence in my work is nature. Even though sometimes a piece might be done in an abstract or abstracted way, nature is still the reason behind it’s creation. The facets of nature that I express may be a favorite natural place, such as the beach, or it could some facet of nature that is only part of a land or seascape. This would result in a piece that is about the flowing of water, or clouds, for example, or even color itself, as the color spectrum is really part of how we enjoy so much of what we see. The same is true of texture, volume and light. To me, these concepts are “the basics” of nature, and it is enthralling to work on expressing them as I experience them.