Cynthia MacCollum
Cynthia MacCollum is a painter, printmaker, designer, and mother of two who lives and works in New Canaan, CT. A graduate of Washington University in St. Louis with a major in Art History and a minor in Fine Art, Cynthia has continued her studies at the Center for Contemporary Printmaking, and at the Santa Reparata International School of Art, with a three-week intensive printmaking program in Florence, Italy. Artist Residencies the last two summers, at the Skopelos Foundation for the Arts in Skopelos, Greece, have deepened MacCollum’s interest in the intersection of Nature and Art, and of Painting, Printmaking, and Alternative Processes.
Early in her career, MacCollum successfully translated her work into textile design, creating scarves for clients Henri Bendel, Nordstrom, Bloomingdales, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; umbrellas for Totes; rugs for Homefires; and dishes and giftware for Sylvestri in conjunction with the Asia Society in New York. For the last 10 years, MacCollum has focused her attention on fine art, specifically works on paper.
Artist Statement: As a painter and printmaker, I find inspiration in fragments of nature held close for reflection. I employ a personal vocabulary of fluid marks and organic imagery to express the sensual pleasure and ephemeral quality of the natural world. Within this realm, my work varies from representational to abstract, and I am continuously moving along the continuum between the two. I tend to work in series, either in regard to the materials used in creating my collagraph plates and prints, or in the exploration of a particular image. Recently I have reconnected to my love of painting and have been exploring ways to connect painting and printing processes. Moving from stencils of plants, to actual plants used as stencils, I am exploring the dialogue between Photography and Painting, despite the fact that I am not using a camera. Instead of painting the object, I am painting the image of the object; this is perhaps a reaction to the constant exposure to images that pervades everyday life. There is also a seasonal aspect to this process; I am using found plant material, and the availability changes with the seasons. The temporal quality of the material, alluding to the passage of time, and the ephemeral nature of the material itself, all speaks to a place in me that craves more connection to the natural world. In addition to private collections, her work can be found in the Fine Art Collection of the Montefiore Health System and Memorial Sloane Kettering.
