Caley O'Dwyer

About the artist

I hope when people see my work they feel a kind of presence—some contact with the curiosity, human kindness, and joy that trace back to the hands and spirit that made the work. While I’m very interested in theoretical frameworks in other parts of my life (creative writing, psychology, etc.) and in other artists’ work, my visual artwork is mostly “about” the sensory, felt experience of seeing it, and wherever that might take the viewer. My art celebrates color, relishes shape, and comes from feeling the development of lines across space. I hope that in some indirect way it evokes playfulness, human tenderness and goodwill. In recent work I create simplified, large-scale drawings as well as representational paintings that evoke flattened, simplified forms in saturated colors that become stages for patterns and mark-making. I love bold color, expressive lines, shapes with both simplicity and character. My paintings often start from drawings, photographs or digital work that I then render in oil or acrylic or both. I often digitally refigure pieces begun on canvas, then rework them with paint on the original support, in a process of back and forth between the electronic and the real.