Tamara Gonda

Works
About the artist
View works. Tamara Gonda, She Walked to the Trees
She Walked to the Trees
View works

I call myself a colorist. Color is the life of my paintings. The work flows between watercolor, encaustic/coldwax and acrylics touching on many temperaments. The one thing they all have in common is the vitality of color.

 

I used to mainly produce Color Field and Abstract Expressionist works. After my first trip to Paris and visiting Monet’s Musee de Orangerie and his painting backdrops my work changed dramatically. They changed into what I call my Lyrical-Abstracts. A series of richly colored paintings with a defined subject matter of landscapes, or dreams of landscapes. The painting surface embraces  rhythmic brush strokes, rich color, that build a contemporary landscape.

 

I have never painted anything close to realism before. I never even imagined myself painting realism before. And yet here I am painting the sights that we have visited, mostly from travels to national parks. I enjoy remembering our family time through my paintings.

 

I’ve come to enjoy the beauty of watercolors that mirror the fluidity of the water, at times lack of control of water. That is what I enjoy most of all, the controlled chaos of the water/paint flow. Watercolors seem to be a world away from my home of abstract painting; they are really a cousin to it. The color once again is what really draws me in.

 

M.F.A. From Cornell University and B.F.A. From Virginia Commonwealth University