Today we’d like to introduce you to Loren Doucette.
Loren, we’d love to hear your story and how you got to where you are today both personally and as an artist.
As early as I can remember, I was transported to another world when my crayons were in hand. As a child, I was always building elaborate play houses and forts that were a fortress for my imagination to soar. Today, I call that fortress my art studio. I grew up in Woburn, Ma taking art lessons as a child and then taking art more seriously when I got into Highschool at Arlington Catholic. It was there I was introduced to painting and immediately knew I had found “my thing”. I studied art at Salem State University from 1993-1996. In 1996, I attended the School for the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, drawing the figure and painting with more focus. In 1997, I gave birth to my son Andrew and began working as a decorative painter and muralist. By the time he was three, I decided to move to Gloucester, Ma where I could raise him by the ocean that so inspired me and to become part of the lively arts community on Cape Ann. I participated in many shows and taught art to children, teens and adults till 2006 before enrolling at Montserrat College of Art in Beverly to continue my studies and to earn a degree in Fine Arts. I studied with Tim Harney, Judy Brown and many others who gave me a new, more solid and expansive foundation for which to create. I focused intensely on art history, drawing the figure and on landscape painting. In 2011, I was fortunate enough to study in Viterbo, Italy for one-month painting daily on the landscape. I graduated with a degree in Drawing and Painting in 2013 and have been showing in solo and group exhibitions since then. I am also passionate about teaching Painting and Drawing to adult students throughout Cape Ann and am so grateful to be part of the artistic fabric of this community.
We’d love to hear more about your art. What do you do you do and why and what do you hope others will take away from your work?
In school I studied photography, sculpture, printmaking, collage, drawing and painting. I believe I have taken all these skills to form the vocabulary I use in my current drawings and paintings. I use pastel, watercolor and acrylic predominantly. I vacillate between drawing and painting as I explore my subjects which are usually outdoor marsh-like landscapes in the warmer months and floral still lives and simple interiors in the colder months.
I like to create art outdoors as often as possible so I can be enveloped by the natural world. I want to feel fully alive and to make art that is fully alive. I can only hope that it comes through for my viewers. I have often had Winter studios with a view of the marshes along Gloucetser. This past winter, I had a larger studio than ever before yet it didn’t have a window with a view. It was interesting to see how my work evolved from the local outdoor landscapes to fantastical colored landscapes with costumed figures from places unknown. I began to look to my “inner landscape” to see what would come alive.
I am mostly drawn to the crossroads between realism and abstraction. I like using direct, physical and sometimes abrasive paint applications. I like exploring how the drawn line can play a role in painting and I like to respond as honestly as I can to my subject. I was told once that in order for others to have an experience looking at your work, you, the artist, have to have an experience making the work. In this vein, I can only hope that people connect in some way to the humanity in my work and that they feel a sense of “place” which is prevalent in many of my paintings.
Do current events, local or global, affect your work and what you are focused on?
I don’t make art directly based on Climate Change or about my Political beliefs. I take how I feel about it all and put it into my painting using nature and the figure as a muse for all my emotions to be synthesized. Given the current state of the world today, I think the role of the artist and the role of the art teacher remains very important. We are a world that spends so much time on digital media and a lot less time working with our hands and our imagination. I like to go into schools, giving presentations and working with the children as often as I can to remind them that their creativity is needed in this world.
I like to bring painting and drawing into the lives of as many people as possible because I believe it opens up pathways that are unassessed in other ways. Painting expresses beyond what we can communicate in words and is a universal language. Painting comes from the bodies’ response and it does not lie. When traumatic events occur in the world and affect me on a deep emotional level, I know the safest way to make sense of it all is to paint. I may not be able to put an end to climate change myself or save every fish in the ocean but I can use the creative gifts I have been given for today and to help create safe places for others to express themselves too.
Do you have any events or exhibitions coming up? Where would one go to see more of your work? How can people support you and your artwork?
My work is currently represented at the Tusinski Gallery in Rockport, Ma. I also show throughout the year in group exhibitions and through private appointments. The latest group exhibition I am a part of is at Montserrat College of Art at 301 Cabot street in Beverly, Ma called “FROM/TO: 2018 ALUMNI EXHIBITION.
Contact Info:
- Address: 16 Cleveland Place Unit 11 Gloucester, Ma
- Website: LorenDoucetteart.com
- Phone: 978-879-6588
- Email: lorenadoucette@gmail.com
- Instagram: Lorendoucette
- Facebook: Loren Doucette
Image Credit:
Thank you to Les Bartlett and Charlie Carroll for the beautiful images of my work.
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