JULY 2025–JUNE 2026
In 1988, when I was 44, I began tempera painting with a Jungian art therapist. Later, I turned to process painting—painting spontaneously without a preconceived plan, and without analysis or judgment of the results. Guided by intuition, not rules and artistic conventions, my work took on dimensions I could not have conceived of or executed by intellect alone. The high-resolution archival-ink reproductions of thirteen of my large tempera paintings in this exhibit date from 1988–1990.
Viewers comment on how colorful my paintings are. This is not by design. I sometimes think that the colors represent not just my own feelings, but also feelings of two generations of women who came before me—my mother and my grandmother. As I wrote in my book Dancing Girl: Themes and Improvisations in a Greek Village Setting, we all have feelings that need to be expressed and a spirit that wants to be set free. No wonder my brush seeks bright colors. No wonder I lay them down on paper in bold sweeps.
In 1991, I began to translate my vibrantly colored tempera images
into monochromatic graphic designs. The translation process is a dance with two partners—the familiar painted image and the emerging graphic counterpart. I enjoy the challenge of preserving the spirit of the original image as I move from one modality to the other. The graphic rendition is affected, however, by the feelings the original image evokes at the time I translate it—my relationship with an image evolves over time. Too, the graphic rendition reflects the freedom allowed, as well as the constraints imposed, by the new medium.
Many of the paintings and several of the graphics in this exhibit have been published, along with 20 personal essays, in my third book, Dances in Two Worlds: a writer-artist’s backstory. The book was funded in part by a generous grant from the John Anson Kittredge Educational Fund (2007) and received the 2012 Colorado Book Award for creative nonfiction.
© copyright Thordis Niela Simonsen
June 2025
Salida, Colorado