Pamela Caughey — Artists Along the Bitterroot

Pamela Caughey - Oil/Cold Wax and Acrylic/Mixed Media

Artist Statement

Abstract painter Pamela Caughey sees painting as a vehicle for endless experimentation and exploration, and is largely inspired by her discoveries of her inner world, from the inside out. Her intuitive and expressive approach juxtaposes opposing elements: opaque and transparent, organic and geometric, textured and smooth, large and small, dark and light. Rather than literal renderings of her environment, she strives to create what her emotional and physical environment evokes: energy, contemplation, discord, quietude, movement, energy, and strong design through shape, color, line and texture.

“Being surrounded by mountains, valleys, forests and sunlit meadows is a great inspiration to the senses, but when I paint, I lean toward painting what I don’t see rather than what is in front of me. Beginning with no initial idea in mind often leads to a truer expression of my surroundings than painting from life or other sources. Rather than paint what I see and know, I paint without knowing and hope I will discover something about myself, or my surroundings. I strive for a finished painting that can express something that rises to the surface from within; something that can’t be verbalized, only visualized.”

For Caughey, allowing the evolving surface to develop as elements are added and subtracted create solutions and nurture her most creative solutions. “I need to be surprised by what is happening in front of me, or I quickly get bored. If I feel I am repeating myself or following a “protocol”, I quickly throw in something I haven’t tried before to shake things up. Ironically, in order to create unity, harmony and something magical in the end, I must start with a counterintuitive approach, which means beginning with elements (color, texture, value, line, shape) that are sometimes chaotic, discordant and uncomfortable. This is what energizes me and allows me to react to what is happening before me; creativity emerges when there are new problems to solve. If it is too easy, it is not art for me. Everything in my past informs the surface; my Japanese heritage, summers spent jumping in cool lakes, loving music, studying chemistry, biology, botany, physics and calculus. Numbers, diagrams and maps emerge along the way and I never quite know what the combination will bring. That is the excitement and the process of making art that I believe leads to creating something uniquely me”.

She describes the “communication” between surface and subconscious as quiet and contemplative. Her ultimate goal is to find resolution, unity and an emotional response through a visual history of manipulated layers. “It is the problem solving that is most gratifying and leads to the most unique solutions. I continue to reach from within to express what for me is often better expressed through abstraction and experimentation.” Life and art continue to lead me to new places.

Her mediums include encaustic, encaustic monotype, oil/cold wax and acrylic/mixed media.