Howdy, Amy Gittelson here

My mediums of choice are acrylics layered with collage and other textural elements, often incorporating text and childhood scribblings. A stint as a graphic designer opened up a magic box (the computer) of new artistic tools and mediums for me to play with as well. I like to juxtapose the industrial with the organic, the bizarre with the benign, the darling with the dastardly.

Since I was a wee thing I doodled and scrawled and slapped paint on surfaces as a way of releasing pent-up demons, assuaging anxiety, and pleasing my mother. Thankfully I have moved past the stage of drawing nothing but princesses with huge heads and tiny shoes.

I eschewed a degree in art in pursuit of more practical things - i.e. a degree in History (that’s meant to be ironic), but I continually update my skills through classes, books and by just doing it. That is by no means an endorsement for Nike. I’m inspired by nature, imagination, insanity (mostly my own), the emotional spectrum, comic books, films, writing, reading, other people’s creations, long walks on the beach… oops, scratch that last one; I forgot this wasn’t a personal ad.

Hi, my name's Darcy, allow me to introduce myself...

Originally from the republik of Seattle. I moved to Taiwan to continue painting and explore a new culture. I'm one of the many artists in this group who call Taipei home.

Painting is the best! My absolute medium of mediums is watercolor - namely since it's under-rated and difficult, but not impossible. I love it!

This is a painting I completed earlier in the year. "Gradients" The panels are each 40cm x 90cm, watercolor on aluminum.

An ongoing theme in my work is balance. With global warming and other woes, finding a balance between consumerism and the planet seems to be on everyone's mind nowadays. I tried to express these concerns and thoughts in this painting. What do you think? Is the title fitting? Are titles ever fitting? Should we keep trying to preserve the earth or should we just give up?

This is another piece I completed about a year ago. The process is the same as "gradients". This is entitled "knots". It's another painting that explores relationships between human made and natural environments. Recently started reading "Concerning the Spiritual in Art" by Wassily Kandinsky. I thought this was a good line:

"The spiritual life, to which art belongs and of which she is one of the mightiest elements, is a complicated but definite and easily definable movement forwards and upwards. This movement is the movement of experience. It may take different forms, but it holds at bottom to the same inner thought and purpose."