ANN PINEDA
CENTERPOINT LEGACY THEATRE SEPT 20 - OCT 28
Ann Pineda is originally from Salt Lake City; but in New Orleans in the 1970s, she began her career as a sign painter in traditional sign shops. She worked there for over 12 years before returning to Utah where she continued painting hand-lettered signage. Then computers changed sign making altogether. Not wanting to abandon real paint for computer-generated work, Ann shifted her focus to fine art and returned to school where she earned her BFA from the University of Utah.
A STATEMENT IN THREE SECTIONS
Spending Time with Places:
I have often wanted to stay longer in places where I have no practical reason to remain. By painting there, I get to stay. The longer I work, I find I am studying not so much the things that are there but the spaces around them, spaces I could move through and also linger in for a while.
In the Rose Garden:
First of all, there are other things in this garden besides roses. Like tulips that volunteer in the springtime. I paint the flowers in order to know them better. I also imagine that I am painting the air around them, the better to remember their perfume. Then there are the creatures. My cat is here, but buried beside a rosebush; so, no more drawings of her will help me to know her better. However, there are now many more birds. I feed them so they will come and occasionally one will need help from me. Helping parentless baby birds requires a lot of work, but they more than repay the debt. I can still feel the clinging baby bird perched on my fingers.
Regard for Work:
I have great affection for paint itself. It is my colored mud, with which I am still making mud pies. My sign enamels are liquid; they drip and the runny consistency levels out concealing much of the brushwork. Thick oil paint retains more of the gesture of the brushstroke. All my work becomes a focus on the physical world.
No matter what the subject matter, the work turns into a kinetic relationship with tangible material. My gestures through real space become tracings in an illusory space of my own making which, in turn, becomes a real place - a painting on a wall - for holding onto feelings that are worth all the work.
- Ann PIneda
This exhibit is presented by Bountiful Davis Art Center and on display upstairs at:
CenterPoint Legacy Theatre
525 N 400 W, Centerville, UT 84014