Coupled
Visual Art Education Award of Distinction
Sponsored by Sandy & MaryLou Andrews, Ampersand and Dick Blick Art Materials
Watermedia
38.5" x 25"
$2,500
Contact
nmstarkartist@gmail.com
Nancystarkart.com
Facebook.com/nancystarkart
Instagram: nmstarkartist
"Coupled" is one of the most recent paintings in my railroad car series. It was painted on gessoed watercolor paper with transparent watercolor and fluid acrylics.
Artist Statement
I have been painting cropped portions of railroad cars for twenty years. I am intrigued by the shadow patterns and shapes that strong sunlight casts on the steel cars. Whenever I paint, I leave out as much of the subject as I capture on my surface. I invite the viewer to stop, look and fill in the missing pieces.
Bio
Nancy Stark is best known for her vibrantly colored, large-scale paintings of railroad cars. Early paintings in this series were representative in nature and done in transparent watercolor on paper. More recent work has been done on gessoed wooden panels with fluid acrylics and found objects. Nancy’s railroad artwork was featured in “Getting Down The Essentials” in Watercolor Magazine, Winter 2007. Traveling around Roanoke, you may have seen one of her train paintings on a Valley Metro bus.
Another direction that her work has taken includes mixed media collage and assemblage. This body of work has grown out of her love of all things old, rusted, found and repurposed.
Nancy says, “My artwork is a response to the pattern, shape, texture, and line observed in the world around me.” She continues, "I am a collector and saver of all sorts of things.”
After graduating in the first class of coeds from Lafayette College and obtaining a Master in Education from the University of Virginia, she married into a train-watching family and took her first watercolor class at Blue Ridge Community College with Kay Flory - both life changers.
Today, she holds signature status in AWS, NWS, and several other watercolor societies. Nancy has served as juror for art exhibitions on the local, regional, and state levels. Her artwork is included in the collections of Norfolk Southern Corporation, Blick Art Materials, Rockingham Memorial Hospital, Augusta Medical Center, Carilion Clinic, HomeTown Bank, CapCo Machinery, Blue Ridge Community College, and in many private collections.