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Margie
Butler
Biographic Profile & Artist Statement
BIOGRAPHIC PROFILE
AUCTIONS,
SHOWS & RESIDENCIES
Artworks! at
Dover Street
Artist-in-Residence, January - June 2003
One Person Show, Community Gallery July 10 - August 30 2003
Vermont Studio
Center two-month
artist-in-residence October and November 2002
Group Show, The
Corscaden Barn, Keene Valley, NY August 2002 and 2003
Mystic Art Association Juried Shows Summer
2002 & 1994
Small Works Show,
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston February-April 2002
Garrison Art
Center Artists
on Location Auctions, Garrison, NY 2000 thru 2002
Yearly Williams-Mystic
Undergraduate Program Scholarship Auction,
Mystic Seaport, CT 1992 to present
West Hartford Art
League Juried Show Summer 1993
WATERCOLOR
PAINTING course
work
Summer course work
at RISD 1988-89, Watercolor
Course Work at Art Students League, New York with Mario
Cooper 1993-5
Course Work at The Design Academy, New York with David
Dewey 1996-7
Workshops with:
Robin Young, Monhegan Island, ME August 2001 & 2002
Christopher Zhang, Mystic Art Association, Mystic, CT June
2001
Barbara Insalaco, NISDA, Nantucket, MA September
1998
Nancy Howell, Keene Valley, NY August 1997
OIL
PAINTING course
work
The Rhode Island
School of Design
Spring 2003
Susan Fassatti, Pursuit of an Abstract Language
The Museum School
at the MFA,
Boston Fall 2001
Robin Dash, Color Painting Workshop
Hannah Barrett, Experiments in Technical Oil Painting
The School for
Visual Art, New York City
Spring 2002
Ira Richer, Advanced Painting Workshop: An Approach to Critical
Thinking
EDUCATION
Middlebury College, Middlebury, Vermont; BA
1990
Environmental Studies major, Studio Art and Maritime Studies
Minors
ART
& RELATED EXPERIENCES/WORK
AHA! (Art, History,
Architecture) Program
Director of this cultural economic development non-profit
project in New Bedford, MA April 2003 to Present
Cambridge Art
Center volunteer,
Cambridge, MA Fall 2001
CAC is an inner city after school arts program for elementary
children
Monhegan Island
Museum volunteer, Maine August 2001
Watercolor painting
in Culebra, Puerto Rico; Benin, West Africa; Keene Valley, NY;
and Greece
Margie
Butler
Artist Statement
My paintings depict personal
objects and intimate places to create a strong sense of physical
and emotional space. I think often about the fine line between
peaceful contemplation and underlying restlessness and seek to
make paintings about the emotional truth that lies within this
zone. By painting storefronts I pass daily or the corners of
my studio I am exploring how charged everyday glimpses of life
can be. I have found both formal and metaphorical value in subjects
such as chairs, windows, plants and trees and items from my studio.
As I push the immediate physical space in and around these objects
through strong color, cropped compositions and purposeful brushstrokes
I am metaphorically painting about emotional space and personal
truths.
Watercolor landscape painting
began developing my interest in luminous color and organic gestures.
As I have transitioned into oil, I have painted in many directions
and allowed myself frequent experiments in abstraction. I am
often drawn to the middle ground between realism and abstraction
by my love of color, painterly gestures and mark making. I see
this back and forth between realism and abstraction as a reflection
of both sides of me -- the definite pragmatist and a searching
soul.
I recognize painting is a journey
that brings constant change and question. Tuning into what I
want to paint is a significant personal process and one I am
committed to continue as I assemble my unique narrative of objects
and places, color and perspective. I draw inspiration from the
works of Bonnard, Matisse, and Alice Neel as well as Richard
Deibenkorn, Lois Dodd and Adele Alsop for their highly personal
statements, their expressive use of color and the evocative intimacy
of each view.
My greatest goal is to be an
honest, expressive painter.
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