Casano Community Center Art Gallery Presents
Willa Goldthwaite Brown’s Watercolor Drawings
Through June 20, 2014
Meet the Artist, Wednesday May 21, 2014 6:30 – 8:00pm
“Straw House”, a solo exhibit of watercolor drawings by Willa Goldthwaite Brown, is on display now through June 20, 2014. There will be a reception to meet the artist on Wednesday May 21, 2014 from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Ms. Brown holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from New Jersey City University where she studied Printmaking. She started her abstract watercolor drawings in 2005 and further developed them through studies in experimental painting under mentor, Hugo Bastidas. This series was first shown at her senior thesis exhibit in 2009 featuring large-scale paintings. In 2010, Willa was invited to participate in a women’s artist residency at _gaia studio in Jersey City. The ten artists created a collective dialogue and artwork that explored the dynamic issues of emigration and (im)migration into the United States. Willa reinvented the Japanese noren inspired by her grandmother. These works were exhibited in Jersey City and the Bronx.
Most recently, Willa has been concentrating on small works, a fantastical, dreamlike subject matter inspired by her three-year-old daughter. The artist’s non-traditional paintings, drawings, and prints attempt to reduce and abstract seemingly insignificant icons into concentrated and complicated structures.
“Although there are independently recognizable painted images, at closer inspection the individuality of the objects is diffused,” Willa stated about her work, “Through consideration of density and scale, fluidity of paint application and layering, I use an unconventional method of application, pushing the paint and allowing the forms to expand, overlap and bleed into each other.”
She has also has exhibited at the Visual Arts Gallery, New Jersey City University, Jersey City, NJ; City Hall, Jersey City, NJ; Seton Hall University, South Orange, NJ; Monmouth Festival of the Arts, Tinton Falls, NJ and Metro Pictures, New York, New York.
Willa lives in Roselle Park with her husband and daughter and continues to work and exhibit in New Jersey and New York. Her website is www.willagoldthwaite.com (link)
The Casano Community Center and the Art Gallery have hours open to the public from Monday through Thursday 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Friday till 5 in the afternoon. The Casano Community Center is located at 314 Chestnut Street.