Geralyn Inokuchi

Her approach to a painting mostly begins with the impressions of color, movement and texture she observes from the environment around her. These impressions are used as a foundation for an expressionistic painting capturing gesture and line. There is depth in the paintings too, which is created through a process of glazing and building up layers of paper and paint through experimentation. These layers create the paradox of something extensively worked yet simple in its appearance.

In her current work she has tasked herself to use a limited palette to narrow her focus so she can concentrate on contrast and movement.

When she works, she always feels as if a painting presents herself with a puzzle that has an infinite number of pieces and an infinite number of solutions.  When she chooses a piece of the puzzle, the solution begins to form; yet it can all change at any moment with the next piece that she chooses so the experiment continues until suddenly a solution is within sight. The result is a piece that has a clarity and is evocative of lives within our environment.

Inspiration for her work comes from what she observes on her daily walks along the Oregon Coast.

Recently she realized that she cannot not paint a storm.

Part of that must be the influence of living on the Oregon coast where the environment can be extreme. But it's not only her natural surroundings that inspire her.  She also thinks the storm she paints has to do with the political and social environment we all experience right now. The world for her has to be processed and released through painting. It is the only way she can articulate the world she observes.