Gallery at Somes Sound | Amy Brnger
Amy Brnger, from Eliot, Maine, has painted still life, flowers, interiors and landscape for as long as she has been an artist. She enjoys painting flowers from her garden, interior views of her home, and forgotten, overlooked landscape views. Her paintings are expressive, energetic, and attempt to capture the changing nature of living things.
Amy has been a painter for over 35 years and has taught painting workshops since 2012. She was born and raised in New Hampshire but now lives in Eliot, Maine, with her husband, painter Craig Hood, and Lefty, their Boston Terrier.
"As long as I have painted, I have been influenced by nature, the changing seasons and my emotional state. My approach to a bouquet, a landscape, or an interior will be different depending upon weather, the quality of light, whether I am tired and crabby or energized and happy. All are reflected in the final image. The way I push paint around a panel, feel the paint on my palette knife and brush, depends on my feeling state and the current season, even the daily weather. The ephemeral quality of nature forces me to look hard, make firm decisions, yet explore the feeling of oil paint, the brush, and try out any tools available to me that enliven and energize the paint surface. I try hard to keep the surprises that make their way onto a panel and stop the painting a few steps before it is finished. Sometimes the image might look awkward and slightly underdone, but if it feels genuine and somehow a reflection of how I see the world in that particular moment, then I want to keep it. When I keep working past that point, the likelihood of scraping the response away, or having an overworked image, is great. Though I know the world can be unforgiving and brutal, especially these days, I continue to see beauty, and most often in some unremarkable and ordinary places. When you look at my flowers and interiors in January, birds and blooms in May, reflections of my studio and hot bright roofs in August, and the somber light of fall and end of season blooms, I hope you can see a glimpse of the world I love.” Amy Brnger
