VISITING HOURS (2021) OIL ON PANEL

Visting hours at an auntie’s house in my village, fed too much sugar and made to sit relatively quietly on an uncomfortable chair while the adults spoke Greek. Visiting hours at the hospital not enough years later. Hours that go by so slow and but also speed past.

This painting is one of ten from my 2022 show, Chronicle, at the Dubuque Museum of Art. The show was about close friends and family, generations, patterns and the passage of time. My student, Rachel, posed for this painting. I created a few studies before I settled on this pose.

The title, Visiting Hours, refers to my memories of us visiting our Greek aunties in childhood. I didn’t understand Greek, so the visits were like church. The only thing you could do is sit quietly and look at what was around you. I remember most the patterns of the oil cloth covering their tables and the patterns on their clothing and aprons. Later, during my father’s long hospital stays, there was nothing to do during visiting hours but sit quietly and make small talk with my mother and siblings and the nurses and look at things around the room.

When I returned from Mexico, I added an extra 15 layers of paint to this painting using a wet into wet method I had learned from one of the Mexican master painters. It lends a depth and chromatic agreement to the painting and the extra cadmium yellow gives the whole painting a golden glow.

EXHIBITIONS:

2023 FANTASMA PRESS, SOLO EXHIBIT PLANTED GALLERY, DUBUQUE, IA

2022 6th ANNUAL PATTERNS, TEXTURES & FORMS ART EXHIBITION, LIGHT SPACE & TIME ONLINE ART GALLERY

2022 CHRONICLE, SOLO EXHIBIT DUBUQUE MUSEUM OF ART, DUBUQUE, IA