“Dreams and Schemes and Flying Machines”
Pamela Wilburn July Exhibiting Artist
Artist Bio
Pamela Wilburn has been a commercial artist and an art teacher in both the private and public school setting. Now, in her retirement, she is devoting herself to fulltime watercolor painting. Pamela holds a bachelors degree in art education with a concentration in commercial art. To further hone her skills, she has also studied with many internationally acclaimed watercolor artists, including Mark Mehaffey, Frederick Graff, Linda Daly Baker, Judi Betts and Robert O’Brien.
Pamela has exhibited her work in both solo and group shows: the Hope Borbas Okemos Library in August, 2011 and the 25th Annual International Society of Experimental Artists Exhibit 2016 Bethlehem, Penn.
She is currently a Lansing Art Gallery featured artist as part of their Pop-Up Art Project, which can be experienced by walking the downtown Lansing streets and locating art placed in newspaper kiosks thoughout the central city blocks on and near Washington Ave.
Awards
Pamela is the recipient of the following awards and honors: Michigan Watercolor Society: 2012 Traveling; 2013; 2014 Traveling 2015. University of Michigan: Dearborn 2011; 2012; 2014. MAE Purchase Acquisitions and numerous Juror’s Choice awards and Purchase Prizes; Best of Show 2014 and Pikes Peak Watercolor Society Award.
About the Exhibit
For the past several years, Pamela has been working on a series of paintings called “Childish Games.” “These are “games” that we played as children, but now, they take on a new and deeper meaning in the complicated subconscious of the adult world,” she says. “The current subject of these games is the paper airplane. They represent our dreams and desires to forge ahead in our daily struggles: to fly ahead of the pack and to soar.”
Artist Statement
Art has always been a part of my life. It defines who I am. My mother used to sit me down at the kitchen table and say, “Make me a pretty picture.” It wasn’t, however, until I took my first watercolor class in a small college in California, that I fell in love with art and watercolor specifically. Nothing else was as exciting or inspirational as watercolor. I love the luminosity and the unpredictable nature of watercolors; they have a mind of their own. I have learned, over the years, that I cannot control them, I am just learning to work with them.
My style goes between two different mind sets. I love to paint impressionistic landscapes, especially in plein air when the weather permits. I also paint in a surrealistic style, pairing well-known images in a realistic manner with unusual context, often making my personal social commentary along the way. What ever I am working on, I prefer to put my own interpretation into each painting; the emotional feeling, the mood and the deviation from local color as needed in that moment.
Open Reception
If you would like to view Pamela’s work and meet her in person, stop by the Arts Council on July 1, 2016, during Arts Night Out Old Town from 5 – 8 p.m. Light refreshments will be served.