Elizabeth Nagle

Through different methods, I am exploring ways to create a magical atmosphere. From small drawings and collages to large painted canvases the artworks are like windows to another place and time where one encounters images both personal and universal.

Using marks, drips, collage, printmaking and drawings each piece represents an interpretation of my experiences. Each piece becomes a journey with it’s own life and language. My process is mostly intuitive, unplanned and free flowing. I work on multiple pieces at a time, adding, subtracting, doing and undoing, layering, covering and uncovering. Eventually a dialogue develops with the work and a story unfolds.

Often grounded in narrative I strive for work that is inventive, mischievous, witty, pleasantly offbeat and often populated with weird and wonderful characters.

BFA San Francisco Art Institute

Intrigued by the psychological phenomenon called Pareidolia - the human tendency to visually make sense of patterns and random information. Leonardo da Vinci wrote about this in his notebooks: "If you look at walls that are stained or made of different kinds of stones you can think you see in them certain picturesque views of mountains, rivers, rocks, trees, plains, broad valleys, and hills of different shapes. You can also find in them battles and rapidly moving figures, strange faces and costumes, as well as an infinite number of things."

We see images in clouds, rock formations, floors, ceilings, wood grain and a myriad of other places. When I paint I often start to see images evolving, at which point I make a decision as to whether to make them clear to the viewer or let them linger mysteriously. What do you see?

abstract, pastel, colorful, mysterious, painting, acrylic