Green Country Watercolor Society Scholarship Award
In 2008 the GCWS expanded its commitment to education and encouraging the development of emerging artists by offering a scholarship award. The scholarship is for college students at the senior or junior level, who are pursuing a Fine Art degree and have a focus in water media. Selection of the recipient is based on the merit of their art work and academic excellence. The inaugural awarding of the scholarship in May of 2009 was to OSU senior Rachel Marks.

2009 Award Winner Rachel Marks

Artist Statement

Some of the most beautiful things in life may be experienced by our natural reactions and understandings. By challenging the oral senses, new perspectives and ideas can transform entirely into interesting and unimagined worlds. I look to music to innovate my mind through its diverse range of sounds and combinations. Historically composers have used many different combinations of tones to present well-pieced together ideas, but it is the quality and individuality of each instrument’s timbre that truly makes the harmony flourish. My work interprets these fundamental qualities and the emotional impact that music produces through the exploration of every instrument’s sound.

As an instrument may portray unique sound qualities, it is ultimately their physical differences that control their diversity. Every instrumental view that I choose to portray in my work is meant to highlight not only each instrument’s material differences, but also what makes them uniquely difficult. The perspective in each composition is a detail image, which challenges the viewer and enables them to explore what seems like a new and unidentifiable physical world of mechanical geometric shapes.

Just as artists understand the hues and values of colors to be warm or cool, musicians similarly describe these qualities as being light or dark. Within my paintings I attempt to mimic the light or dark sound produced by each individual instrument through using corresponding warm or cool colors. Although the compositions and forms of my paintings have similar representational qualities, they ultimately push the boundaries of classical realism becoming their own unique abstractions. Stylistically, my work communicates the musicality and flow of each particular instrument using short progressive strokes colliding with smooth blended colors.

The greatest influence to my work has been Wassily Kandinsky, for his abstract ideas on translating sound into a visual composition. Kandisnsky’s bold colors and illustrated shapes are his own artistic interpretations of the form and emotion in music. His unique perspective on the visual aspect of sound has inspired me to emulate these ideas in my own work.

I strive to break down the sound combinations of these classical instruments and evaluate the resonance. My expectation for my audience is that they will be able to feel the musicality of the instruments dancing throughout each painting.

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