Mollie’s Artist Statement and Bio:
To my mind, only a few subjects are really worthy of artistic expression – love, beauty, death, and God. Death is not a difficult subject to depict, but the others are not so easy because they so easily become cliché, nostalgic, and syrupy. Still, I am driven to engage with God in my work.
I have been a lifelong doll collector; my collection is small but cherished. Something about the figure has always captured my imagination. Even as a child, my interest in dolls was aesthetic (I preferred animals for play.) Perhaps it is the fun of entering into the creative process: God creates people, a reflection of Himself. People create dolls, paintings, and other artifacts, reflections of themselves.
In art school, I concerned myself with seeing and representing the figure (and other subjects) with a certain degree of accuracy. Although an immensely valuable pursuit, visual accuracy has been only a starting point. During the past several years I have sought to evoke a sense of what may not be perceived visually through a still medium. Many artists paint dancers because they are beautiful, as are the spaces they tend to inhabit. I am drawn to dancers because I love the medium of dance itself, especially dance as worship. I have thus found myself tackling subjects I once considered too trite for the art world such as joy and movement. I am especially drawn to moments of spiritual connection.
Through my own art, as well as through the art of others I connect with my Creator, so the process of painting itself has become increasingly enjoyable and important to me. I appreciate the various properties of different brushes and the unique marks they make. Various types of paint and colors have different consistencies and opacities. I want to see evidence of all this in the final work. A childlike process of discovery, combined with the experience of careful study brings me through stages of maddening exasperation and profound delight as the work unfolds. My hope is that each of my paintings can provide the viewer a sliver of the history of my creative process and, more importantly, a glimpse beyond the visual.
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