Mary Beth Dolan

Currently I am working on two major areas of interest. A series of paintings based on my recent trip to Northern Arizona, and portraying the spirit of natural elements, specifically trees. In the past four years I have begun to experiment with new mediums and techniques such as using palette knives, resist methods and adding unusual textures to primed canvasses.

The breath-taking Northern Arizona scenery inspired me to paint landscapes from Sedona, and close-ups of local flora. The series also includes scenes from the Buddhist retreat center that I stayed at. I spent ten days and nights perched on a mountaintop overlooking the high desert- and there are paintings that depict scenes specific to a typical day there. The paintings featuring Arizona scenes are watercolor and acrylic paintings. The watercolor paintings are done in multiple layer process, some of the paintings have over 12 layers of watercolor glazes. The acrylic paintings are also layers, but not to such an extreme degree.

The series of “spirit masks” use found natural objects such as leaves, seedpods, snail shells, acorns, and rose hips assembled with castings of people’s faces. The process is engrossing- it involves long walks foraging for materials, the assembling of the cast mask, and then attaching the leaves, and other found objects.