Aimee Bonham Art Exhib "Pallets Preserved Art Exhibit"

?Palettes Preserved? Aimee Bonham Solo Show at the DiFiore Center for the Arts May 2nd - May 28th Opening Reception May 2nd 7-9pm Palettes Preserved Artist Statement To me the palette is as much a part of the art as the final product. The palette charts steps and thoughts. It shows the process that precedes the painting. Coming back to paint after a day, week or month of being away, I sit in front of the dried paint on my palette and am taken back to the previous painting session. Using a razor blade scraper I slowly remove the paint from the metal watercolor palette and place the scraps in my dried paint collection. Saving old paint? Yes artists are frugal pack-rats; however, you may be thinking, ?but this is too much?. This weird habit began in college while working in my studio on my final show. One of my professors asked me if he could have my recently removed dried paint. I scraped and saved all my dried paint blobs from my palette and over time filled several small sandwich bags. I never saw exactly where these paint scrapings went, nor the art for which my professor would create; nevertheless, it struck a chord with me and started something. I began seeing my palette and the old paint prior to the painting to have it?s own beauty. It was something that I wanted to hold onto. Something I wanted to preserve ? but how? In this body of work I am exploring the idea of the palette as a work of art. Old paint is employed into new paint and small palette panels are fused to larger panels to create a single piece of art. Carefully considered color palettes and blind line drawings create organic pod-like shapes in motion. The use of color, the employment of paint and pencil and the ambiguity of organic forms allow meditation and contemplation in each viewer. A viewer?s experience with my work is an exercise in introspection and exploration.