Artist Lecture/ Lennie Mullaney/ Painter

    During her M.F.A. Thesis, Lennie Mullaney shared her experiences as an observational painter completing her bridge series. She has always paid close attention to composition, light, color, and detail in the landscape but made a transition with her work and techniques later on in her life. She decided to move away from landscapes and began painting city-scapes to convey her appeal towards the "tension between natural beauty and urban settings". This transition to a fast moving world allowed her to let go of her obsession with detail and focus more on shapes and color. Her work became more impressionistic and "spontaneous". At one point during her talk, she describes "the sense of freedom when you give up control". I find this to be very true for myself as an artist. After finishing a semester working with the 4x5 cameras I was pretty discouraged. I ended up being too wrapped up in the technicalities rather than my subject matter. When I was able to work with the Holga camera, where the photographer has little to no control, I found it liberating. It was nice to focus simply on composition and subject matter. I found Mullaney's paintings to be a great depiction of time passing and movement, and I connected a lot conceptually.