Maud Guilfoyle

New Jersey, USA, Spring Roots, acrylic, 48 x 36"

My Inspiration

I paint in the greenhouse of a local farm where I am surrounded by flowering lemon and jade trees, orchids and succulents among hundreds of plants. Outside, I walk through meadows, surrounded by the subtle and sweet scent of flowers and grasses and birdsong. Viewers of my paintings tell me they experience a healing connection with nature. I was inspired to paint a series of meadows by work of the Land Institute in Kansas, and close friends who are gardeners and farmers. They practice a new/old agriculture informed by nature. This system produces food while preserving biodiversity and creates polyculture food crops with deep roots instead of merely 2-foot deep annual roots. This builds and stabilizes precious topsoil. Life continues underground through four seasons.

My Design Strategy

When I the long underground roots, I knew I wanted to paint this vibrant tangle of life. The contrast between above and below earth is especially striking. The challenge was to imbue the roots with enough interest to carry the painting while maintaining the details of life above ground. To give emphasis to the roots, I designed the paintings so that roots covered two thirds of the canvas. As I painted layers and scratched details through top layers, the roots and tendrils became a living image of the woven web of life.

My Working Process

Layers of heavy bodied acrylic paint are painted, glazed and scumbled on canvas to yield rich color and a sense of atmosphere. For the top coat over the area of roots

I used an acrylic paint that stays wet longer, allowing paint manipulation. After a first coat of pastel colors dried, I applied a thick layer of this paint, using blends of burnt umber, ultramarine blue, red oxide and yellow ochre. Then I scribed through this wet layer with a rubber tipped wipe out tool. I wrote blessings for the Earth, winding words around the roots. When this was dry, I added many finer hair like roots. A final touch was earth from the Land Institute mixed into the top layer of umber paint.

Finalist

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