INTERVIEW: Deloris White | Ogunquit Art Association (OAA) Showcase Artist - Barn Gallery

Deloris White is an Ogunquit Art Association member-artist (Printmaking) and one of our 6 Showcase Artists at Barn Gallery for the 2022 Season.

White’s Showcase at Barn Gallery will run from May 25 – June 26, 2022 with an Opening Reception on Saturday, May 28th, 2022 (from 4PM – 7:30PM) and a Gallery Talk on Thursday, June 16, 2022 (at 6PM).

Learn more about the Barn Gallery 2022 Schedule: https://barngallery.org/get-ready-for-some-art-in-ogunquit-barn-gallerys-2022-season/

Featured Image Above Detail of Deloris White: | Island Wildflowers Monoprint | viscosity with drypoint | 12 x 12“

Continue reading below for some excerpts from a discussion we had with Deloris White about her background and work.

I was accepted into the OAA in 1993. Edward Betts and Beverly Hallam were both on that jury committee; I have always felt honored to have been accepted that year.

The foundation of my art is deeply rooted in drawing and nature. I began my journey as a painter but, first and foremost, I consider myself a printmaker. I have explored and studied numerous printmaking genres and techniques from traditional black and white etchings to gelatin plate monotypes to solar plate etchings. For the past twenty years, going green, I have been working solely with soy or water-based materials.

I have an MEd from Lesley University in Creative Arts, was an art educator and the Director of Fine Arts at Berwick Academy for thirty-seven years. I have had the opportunity to study with Innovative printmakers, Catherin Kernan, Susan Rostow, and Dan Welden.

The theme of my showcase, Exploring Connections – Images and Words, is my response to the natural world to make my thoughts visible…literally and metaphorically. Engaging all five senses with an added touch of intuition, I walk, sit, ponder, observe, and react to Nature’s ever-changing abundant cycles of death and renewal. Collecting “unconventional tools” from the environment…a rock, sea glass, a rusted nail, etc., I literally complete a dry point sketch, starting from scratch. While responding to what is left behind in a ghost image, by adding and subtracting multiple layers ink and surface manipulation and overprinting, requires spontaneity and a sense of play that often leads to unexpected surprises. Collecting prints from my flat file that “speak to one another,” I reinvent or reimagine countless possibilities by cutting, uniting, relating, rearranging, and pasting that feels like making connections between old and new friends.

Knowing that life and art are both journeys and works in progress, I hope we can each make connections to what we have learned from the past and be open and responsive to exploring new possibilities in a dance of the imagination.