Audrey Tulimiero Welch
Approaching the StillPoint of Turbulence
March 7 - 30, 2024
Russo Lee Gallery, Portland, OR
Meet the artist Reception Thursday, March 7, 5-7pm
“Love in the Nick of Time”, 2024, Acrylic, flashe, plaster on canvas
“As a painter, this is what painting allows for me. It allows a way in and through all that does not make sense, all that is difficult. Somehow, in the space of a rectangular piece of canvas, life in its fullness, throbbing and overflowing is present. I hope the viewer will discover the work’s calm serenity in and through its pulsing energy that is so reminiscent of our collective turbulent and vibrant life.”
Artist Statement
Approaching the Stillpoint of Turbulence
I construct emotive abstract paintings that map suffering, loss, and the capacity of the human spirit to heal and transform. Heavily steeped in process, I apply acrylic paint thickly, thinly, poured, and troweled on stretched canvases in a range of sizes, from six foot to intimately scaled works on paper. Functioning as a way-finder, line in my work creates spatial depth and is drawn with pencil, crayon, tape, and ballpoint pen. Plaster and masking fluid are applied like a skin that conceals underlying brush marks. Through layers of frenetic linear elements, pours of translucent paint, and opaque skins of plaster, each painting in this exhibit arrives at a state that merges turbulence and stillness.
For me, all of this process is a metaphor for life and the difficulties you go through. It’s a regenerative space, where similar to life, I take my paintings through a rigorous process of building up, tearing down, and then remaking them and being surprised.
As a painter, this is what painting allows for me. It allows a way in and through all that does not make sense, all that is difficult. Somehow, in the space of a rectangular piece of canvas, life in its fullness, throbbing and overflowing is present. I hope the viewer will discover the work’s calm serenity in and through its pulsing energy that is so reminiscent of our collective turbulent and vibrant life.
-Audrey Tulimiero Welch, March 2024