FEATURED ARTIST

KIM MANFREDI

Kim Manfredi develops ideas through movement and observation, often walking or biking through the landscape and paying close attention to the shapes, colors, textures, and patterns around her. Rather than painting a particular mountain, road, or flower, she transforms these observations into an abstract visual language that suggests landscapes both familiar and imagined.

Her shapes might suggest rocks, guardians, pathways, plants, stars, wind, or something that exists entirely in the imagination. Through experimentation and chance, Manfredi builds layers of color, texture, and form using paint, oil sticks, spray paint, metal leaf, and locally sourced sand. Everyday materials become artistic tools: bent paper creates mountains and petals, while cardboard, tape, and found materials produce lines and shapes that can be repeated, rotated, and rearranged.

Manfredi describes abstraction as a kind of liberated language—one that can suggest familiar things without following the rules of realistic representation. Her paintings invite viewers to look closely, make connections, and discover their own meanings within the forms.

Agnes Pelton (1881–1961)

Agnes Pelton was an American modernist painter who created luminous, abstract paintings inspired by nature, light, spirituality, and the invisible world. Living and working in the California desert, she transformed observations of the natural environment into glowing forms, floating shapes, and dreamlike spaces. Rather than painting landscapes exactly as they appeared, Pelton used color and abstraction to express feelings, energy, and a sense of mystery. Her work shows students how familiar elements from nature can become the starting point for entirely imagined worlds. Manfredi has identified Pelton as an influence on her own interest in expansive color and spiritual dimensions within painting.

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Celmins, Vija. Ocean Surface Wood Engraving 2000. 2000–2001. Wood engraving on Zerkall paper, 20 3/4 × 17 1/4 in. Edition of 75, AP of 16. Published by the Grenfell Press, New York. Courtesy McKee Gallery, New York.

Richard Diebenkorn (1922–1993)

Richard Diebenkorn was an American painter whose work was deeply influenced by the landscapes, colors, and light of California. His celebrated Ocean Park paintings combine large areas of color with geometric shapes, intersecting lines, and subtle layers of paint. Although abstract, these compositions often suggest horizons, windows, roads, or views of the landscape. Diebenkorn carefully arranged shapes and colors, sometimes allowing earlier marks to remain visible beneath the surface. His work demonstrates how composition, balance, and thoughtful relationships between shapes can create a powerful sense of space without depicting a realistic scene.

Richard Diebenkorn, A Day at the Race, 1953. Oil on canvas, 56 × 52 3/4 in. Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; Patrons Art Fund.

Tomory Dodge (b. 1974)

Tomory Dodge is an American painter whose energetic abstract paintings often begin with ideas drawn from the landscape. Through brushing, scraping, layering, and experimenting with paint, he creates compositions filled with movement, color, and unexpected forms. Shapes may suggest roads, mountains, horizons, or open spaces without representing any specific location. By covering, revealing, and reworking earlier layers, Dodge allows the process of making to remain visible. His paintings show students how experimentation and unexpected discoveries can become important parts of creating an artwork.

Tomory Dodge, Giant, 2020. Oil on canvas, 84 × 60 in.

Julie Mehretu (b. 1970)
Julie Mehretu is an Ethiopian-born American artist known for creating complex, layered abstract paintings filled with lines, shapes, marks, and movement. Combining drawing, painting, spray paint, and printing techniques, she builds compositions that can suggest maps, cities, landscapes, and imaginary spaces. Her paintings often contain many overlapping elements, inviting viewers to discover new relationships between shapes and marks. Mehretu's work demonstrates how layering, repetition, and movement can transform individual marks into expansive visual worlds

Julie Mehretu, Empirical Construction, Istanbul, 2003. Acrylic and ink on canvas, 120 × 180 in. The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Fund for the Twenty-First Century. © Julie Mehretu.

• Abstract – Art that does not try to look exactly like real life. Instead, artists use color, shape, line, texture, and form to communicate ideas or create an experience.

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• Composition - How you arrange everything in your artwork to create balance, movement, or visual interest.

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• Contrast – A noticeable difference between things, such as light and dark, large and small, smooth and textured, or different colors.

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• Geometric Shape – A shape with clear, defined forms, such as a circle, triangle, square, or rectangle.

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• Horizon Line – The line where the sky appears to meet the land or water. Artists can use it to organize a landscape and create a sense of distance.

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• Imaginary Landscape – A landscape invented by an artist rather than copied from a real place. It might represent a dream, memory, feeling, another planet, or a completely invented world.

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• Landscape – An artwork that represents or suggests a place in the natural or built environment, such as mountains, fields, deserts, cities, or imaginary worlds.

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• Layer – One element placed over another element in an artwork. Layers can create depth, texture, and visual interest.

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• Limited Palette – Using just a few colors instead of every color in the rainbow.

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• Negative Shape – The open space left behind when a shape is cut out or placed against another surface.

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• Organic Shape – A flowing, irregular shape often inspired by nature, such as a cloud, leaf, rock, or puddle.

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• Overlap – When one shape partly covers another.

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• Positive Shape – The shape or object itself—the piece that occupies space.

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• Repetition – Using the same shape, color, line, or mark again and again.

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• Rotation – Turning a shape in a new direction.

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• Scale – How big or small something is compared to everything around it.

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• Stencil – A shape or opening you paint or spray through or around to make an image.

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• Texture – How something looks or feels on its surface. Texture can be actual, such as sand, or visual, created through marks and patterns.

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• Visual Language – A collection of shapes, colors, lines, textures, and other visual elements that an artist uses to communicate ideas.