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BoldBrush Recommends: Lee Perrault
Biography
I grew up during the 50’s, drawing with pencil, charcoal, pen and ink. When my Jon Gnagy ‘Learn To Draw’ set reduced to tatters, I moved on to ‘paint by numbers’. High school and college, in the 60’s, still found me in the pursuit of the fine arts, working in ink, acrylic and woodcut mediums. After marrying and working for three years in Boston, we moved to Europe, where I used my five years there to make use of the abundant art and cultural influences to be found. Returning stateside, I went on to graduate with a degree in graphic design in 1980, from The American University, Washington DC, before returning to my native NH.
I founded Via Design, Manchester NH, in 1987, and enjoyed a long and successful graphic design career. By the time I retired in 2001, my husband and I had moved to the Rye NH seacoast, where for the next two decades, I consulted as a Colorist and Interior Designer with my company. It was in Rye that I returned to my fine art following the passing of my artist mother. One day, finding myself staring at a mountain of (mom’s) art materials, I had an epiphany; I picked up the brush and dove in. I began to explore oils as a medium, while spending several years making and cradling my own hardboard canvases at the local shipyard wood shop. It was a time of experimentation and exploration as I soaked up the teeming coastal subject matter, gathering natural items and wandering the shore. I spent much of my free time with my canine painting companion, painting ‘en plein air’ in areas around our home.
Upon moving to Cape Coral, Florida in 2016, we renovated a 1969 canal house, and then set up my current off-site studio. Aside from a devastating hurricane that left us out of our house for a year, I am finally free again to paint most days in my happy studio place. I hope you’ll join my mailing list if you enjoy the results!
STATEMENT
I started painting in oils late in my career, but I’ve been an artist all of my life. I paint to lose myself, and when I put down my brushes, some part of me seems born anew.
Lucky to have a childhood free to wander and observe in rural, western New Hampshire (NH), USA, I befriended some unique and interesting animal and plant life. I sketched, painted and examined ... my pets, the pink lady slippers on the ledge, and the whippoorwill that lived near the house. Somehow, I developed a steady hand, some knowledge of color mixing, and a resourcefulness that still guides me when I have no answers. Years later, when I returned to college to study graphic design, those early skills handily translated into the laying down of a gorgeous curve and an intuitive eye when balancing compositional elements. Today, these skills get me closer to beautiful brush strokes, colors that light up in just the right way, and images that manifest themselves as I see them in my mind’s eye.
Animals are frequently present in my art. They insert themselves with playfulness and joyful energy, but sometimes I find them screaming at me with important messages ... the result perhaps being a raucous abstraction! I can often feel my creature subjects trying to speak through my brush, and it feels good when their personalities and messages are able to present themselves in a painting.
As a graphic designer and colorist, it is not surprising that I am drawn to the ‘graphic’ and ‘color’ offerings of deep shadows, repetition of shapes, and visual honesty. The challenge and juxtaposition of complex colors and form just seem to draw me in, and I tend to paint something whether or not I have any idea how to do it! The result finds me constantly figuring out how to get what I want, and (generally) enjoying the challenge.
From the moment that I begin an abstract painting, I get excited about laying down the underlayment, then building slowly upon layer after layer. Abstract painting truly allows me to let go, free myself from outcomes, and respond to color, form and movement. I have recently found my way back to this freedom, and it has ignited something special that I needed at this point in time! I hope you like these pieces and decide to follow their evolution to a style that I will feel is my own.
All around us are delicious little tidbits of life that may stop us in our tracks ... a pile of empty clam shells from last night’s dinner, some piece of ephemera lying on the end table in the morning sun, or those precious flowers sent by your best friend. Sometimes we just must record them before they wilt, fade or wash away.
When I paint a scape, it is because that moment in time resonated with me, and I needed to bring my own emotions (and editing, or artistic license) into the memory. As a painter, I can create as dreamy or as realistic a piece as I want. But mostly, I look for a commonality which connects with others when they see my painting, some intuitive pulse that feeds their own memories of moments in time.
I love painting commissions for my clients! It becomes my charge to deliver a representation that connects the spirit and likeness of the subject to the person who commissioned it, and in a style that resonates with them. Often my commissions involve animals, and animals are so responsive to energy. Having studied telepathic animal communication, I can usually connect quickly with the animal, ask for their help, and ‘plug in’ to that special frequency that shares energy and vitality. They just love that someone can speak their language (even if it is just a hobby for me), so they tend to make my job so much easier! Let me know if I can do this for you and your special critter, creature or pet.
Nature and the outdoors always take me back to my roots as that barefoot tomboy who was fascinated with all critters and fauna ... in nature, the hay barn and the gardens. As an adult, city life later softened my country girl edges. Years in cities like Boston, Munich and Washington DC gave me the opportunity to absorb various cultures, inhale a different kind of beauty, and develop a ‘visual memory library’. It is good to have lived at both ends of the seesaw!
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