Helen DeRamus
Artist Statement
My paintings are devoted to capturing the beauty of the landscape, undefined locations recorded and preserved in memory with the use of photographs and drawings while traveling the Eastern United States. I use the landscape as a metaphor for memory, as it is the power and fragility of memory that provide a sense of self, universally. Texture and color come from the urban and rural South, with its lush vegetation, red clay earth and architecture of its modern cities. Many of the preliminary layers in a painting explore surface in great detail with interest in the smallest of found leaves, rocks, and tiny twigs. The twigs themselves often becoming the instruments of the drawing and painting process.
A few lines from educator and artist, Edna Lorri Shipp’s poem describing one of my paintings:
“underneath it all
lies our earthly remnants
scattered around
bits and pieces
glittery, transparent, translucent and dim
drips of silver and chalcedony
notes of romantic bliss”
Lamar Dodd, a U.S. painter whose work reflected a love of the American South, once wrote that my paintings were “lyrical”. I understood and embraced that thought since reading modern poetry and listening to music while working is part of my studio working atmosphere.
