Blue Jay
Connie Greger
Original Oil on Board
Framed Size 14 x 16 in.
$275.00
To look for inspiration in our own lives, we need search no further than the natural world outside our window. Here in the creatures around us are the resilience, determination, dignity, and positivity that would serve3 us well as guides through our individual hills and valleys of experience. Consider, for example, the birds, the co-habitors of our urban landscape. Each day they are committed to finding food for themselves and their children while always alert to potential threats. Yet they also revel in that marvelous miracle of aerodynamic flight, soaring above, swooping in, and exploding away again, unaware that it is entirely dependent on the simple yet ingenious design of one feather aligned with the next.. So too do butterflies pursue their flitting travels, sometimes migrating thousands of arduous miles to where they must perpetuate their own kind. In contrast, turtles and frogs remain where they were born, part of a continuous cycle in the delicate balance of life.
On just a few deft strokes of colour, Connie Greger’s paintings capture these traits. She records the head cocked in focused observation, the body at rest in quiet contemplation, the serenity of a dragonfly floating above a pristine waterlily, the hovering butterfly looking for the next taste of nectar, the silent frog poised to leap, the turtle striding steadily across the bumpy terrain. In each one, the anatomical detail is strongly delineated against a contrasting background of softly blended hues. This technique requires the artist’s practiced hand to ensure one colour does not bleed into another and thus ruin the entire painting. Connie Imbues these portraits with singular joy, celebrating the vitality and tenacity contained in each small yet extraordinary body. Together they offer respite for the mind and a new way of seeing the gift of life.
Catherine Elliot Shaw-2020.
Curator(retired)
McIntosh Gallery
University of Western Ontario