ARTIST STATEMENT
My paintings are a journey:
The beginning is loose and experimental building up texture and establishing movement. The materials I use are varied. Some hold marks, others glide with transparency. On walks I pick up mark making tools to use in my work. I cart them back to my studio, lay them out, and wait to see how they want to be used.
The mid journey is a process where my thoughts, hands, and body are equal partners.The methods and marks often match the pace of my thinking. Some days slow and thoughtful. Others energized and spontaneous . It is this tactile way of communicating on canvas that tells my story.
In the end I seek to take the viewer on the journey with me. Where shards of the beginning are visible in the final piece. A slight mapping of the process. The finished work is an energetic push and pull of movement and color.
A painting invites you, and sometimes provokes you, into the world of the painter.... welcome
BIOGRAPHY
Vicki Vinton is an American painter and sculptor living and working in rural Pennsylvania.
Vinton began her undergraduate work at the University of Denver where she majored in art and philosophy. She continued her studies at the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts, studying the figure with Bruce Samuelson and color theory with Murray Dessner. In 1985, she was selected as one of the first residents of The Vermont Studio School.
Her creative journey continued at Longwood Gardens where she studied ornamental horticulture and design. Then, after a seven-year career in landscape design and installation, Vinton began a process of re-inventing herself. She enrolled in The Finishing School to study applied arts with Ina Brosseau Marx before entering a twenty-year career in the Faux Finishing Industry. As a Master Decorative Painter, her work can be found in many remarkable homes and businesses on the East coast, and internationally.
Vinton has now returned to the studio. Her paintings manifest energetic surfaces, a skillful use of color and an earthy curiosity. The unique quality of her work blends a knowledge of art history and the fine arts with a vast array of technical skills learned from the applied arts. The finished piece is always a record of process and discovery arising from measured deliberation, reaction, spontaneity, and chance.
Vinton remains an active gardener and planter of trees.
EDUCATION
1977 – 1981 BA, Fine Art and Philosophy, University of Denver, Denver, CO
1983 - 1985 Philadelphia Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelpia, PA
1985 Vermont Studio School, Johnson, VT
1985 - 1987 Longwood Gardens, Kennett Square, PA
1989 - 2011 The Finishing School, New York, NY