Amy Donaldson’s passion for painting comes through in every brush stroke. Her influences span the centuries, including European Romanticism, Impressionism, Abstract Expressionism, and contemporary street art. Nonetheless, she has created a signature style that connects the past with the present with a vibrant sense of immediacy and freshness. Many paintings burst with joy and light from the heavenly realm, while others are cloaked in a more intimate softness, a sense of history, or an indefinable mystery.
Evident in each composition is Donaldson’s strong sense of color and her depth of feeling for space and light. This is achieved by her fusion of crushed, powdered, natural pigments with oil paint, which are applied in a freely expressive manner. Using tools other than traditional brushes, she attacks the surface of the canvas in a direct approach that is additive and subtractive—a process one may associate with sculpture as much as with painting. She lays down luscious, pliant marks across the surface, then scrapes areas of the composition back, then vigorously adds and scrapes again to achieve her goal. While some pictures lean more toward floral landscapes, others are reminiscent of the romance of an aging city where hazy horizons create a seemingly endless atmospheric depth. Sometimes elements of graffiti appear, their looping letters cutting through the roughly layered surfaces like traces of humanity on ancient walls.
ABOUT
A native of Jacksonville Beach, Florida, Amy Donaldson has exhibited her work internationally. In 2016 alone, she had a solo show in Paris, work at the Brussels Art Fair, Art Basel Miami, Atlanta’s National Juried Exhibitions, and Illinois State Museum. Her work has appeared in Chicago PD, Luxe Magaizne, Modern Luxury Magazine, Chicago Home Magazine, Nuevo Estilo Magazine, Madrid, and many other publications. Her paintings are in numerous public and private collections, and she has completed commissions for a number of hospitals, banks, and luxury residences.
