ARTIST STATEMENT
I have spent time recently looking at old family photographs. I see the history of my family. I see how the past informs the present. Memory is a funny thing. Sometimes it is in your mind. And sometimes it exists in your bones. When I was young, my mother was a great source of comfort, protection, and strength. She was confident, gregarious, outspoken, while I was introverted and shy. Sometimes she was my voice when I was too self-conscious to have one. I followed her around and watched, and I learned to connect to others. While the years have transformed that relationship, the biological and existential connection remains, and inevitably it became the path into the relationships I had with my girlfriends when I was young as well as the relationships I have with my girlfriends today.
My life would not be full without the women who are part of it. For good or bad, there is a common emotional language, a need for understanding, support, comfort, and love, and a constant coming to terms with the pride, jealousy, dependence, and comparisons that inevitably intrude. This painting of me and my mother offers an inception point for the person I am and the relationships I have today. My paintings depict these intimate relationships. They are personal to me, but they are universal. And while the work asks the viewer to interpret the image before them, each viewer brings a unique perspective to decipher a story that ultimately becomes her own.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Stacey Creem is a realist artist, painting the people, places and things that give her life meaning. She concentrates in oil, using color and brushstroke to convey emotion and her joy of painting. Her paintings, often depicting everyday objects, plants, and people, explore the relationship between people as well as the individual’s relationship to the earth. As a painter, Stacey is interested in drawing the viewer in by representing something that is simultaneously familiar and unique.
Her paintings tell a story that is personal, but also universal. Before returning to art school and devoting her time exclusively to making art, Stacey practiced law, painting in between working and caring for her family. Her career and experiences inform the details and subject matter of her work and compel her to create with purpose and intention. Stacey lives and paints in Westchester, New York.
© Stacey Creem