Gail Norfleet Mixed Media

Artist Statement: How many ways can I depict a flower? I can draw it, paint it, and photograph it. Then I can manipulate those images on a printer. I can enlarge it. Make it smaller. Make the negative. Make the positive. Change the color. My mornings in Santa Fe start with a walk around the garden to see what has bloomed overnight. Two summers ago, I rented an adobe guest house that is surrounded by Hollyhocks, Roses, Poppies, and Yellow Thistles. The flowers have crept into my vision. The first summer, I painted the flowers using oil on canvas. The second summer I became more experimental, combining drawing, photography, and painting. Mixing the media all in one artwork, I abandoned canvas for transparent Lucite panels. The new works are essentially mixed media collage applied to Lucite. Working on front and back, layered to see through to the next. Creating a real space with real shadows but in an ambiguous world. The flowers are dense but there is an identity and clear shape of each. These works are labor intensive, requiring precise cutting of the paper and careful application. In "The Flowers of the Street of Spirits," black Hollyhocks stand tall with turquoise Firewheels and magenta Coneflowers. Real and unreal. Cut paper and paint come together in a surreal garden...

"The transparency makes the shape of the flower clear. Gossamer, translucent. Seeing through to a dream garden. A real and unreal space. Beauty. Budding, unfolding. Dying. Precious m...

"The transparency makes the shape of the flower clear. Gossamer, translucent. Seeing through to a dream garden. A real and unreal space. Beauty. Budding, unfolding. Dying. Precious m...

Gail Norfleet earned her BFA at The University of Texas at Austin, and her MFA at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. Among others, she has had solo exhibitions in Dallas at The...