Artist Statement
When I sit down to do my art, my intention is to create magic; to create a visual wonderland that brings the gift of insight into the realm of mystical perception.
Like Zen, I feel I am a channel for the direct transmission of that phenomenon, the mysterious now.
So, when I look down at a series of squiggles and an image suddenly appears, I’m frequently surprised and say, “Oh, that’s what that is,” and draw it. And sometimes I ask, “Where did you come from?!” Other times I’m drawing and the lines start flowing into a form as if drawing itself, so I finish it.
This is the experience I want to share with my audience, the very discovery of the images unfolding before their eyes. And from that revelation, it is my aim for the viewer to come away with a new sense of awe about the magic of creation.
Artist Bio
Virginia Stewart was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on October 25, 1952. She is currently a resident of Phoenixville, PA.
Virginia has for a lifetime been on a healing and spiritual journey after being exposed to a range of human thought from Eastern philosophy to Western psychology. Her spiritual interest began at the age of thirteen when she heard a practitioner of yoga speak of the journey to enlightenment.
Virginia attended the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts with an intensive curriculum of life drawing, still life, figure painting, cast drawing from plaster statues, art history, materials and techniques, anatomy, and other related courses.
She also attended the Studio School of Art and Design where she extended her artistic toolset with typography, mechanical drawing, color theory, illustration, and other methods and media.
Virginia’s curiosity for learning new things took her in many different directions, such as exploring physics and astronomy. And because of her love of learning about the city she lived in, she became a tour guide in Historic Philadelphia.
In 2009, she joined a unique learning center called Sphere College Project, where she gained the confidence to set out on her true path to becoming an important fine artist.
Exhibitions include: The Crescent Awards Show at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Print It Frame It Ship It, Steel City Gallery and Cafe, The Phoenix Village Art Center, “May Is Mental Health Month” (a traveling show sponsored by Fellowship Health Resources), Local Sphere Gallery and Crafts, Stages Arts Initiatives, and Franklin Commons Gallery “Flight” Show; Colors of Humanity, “Animals”; 3 Square Art Gallery, “100 Square Inches of Art”; Colors of Humanity, “Open”
Awards: SUNDAY SOUP AWARD, 2011 to frame her artwork; FIRST PRIZE, Fellowship Traveling Show, 2012 for Rose Empress; HONORABLE MENTION, The Phoenix Village Art Center Membership Show, 2013 for Flower Pod.
Commissions: Richard Liston, Radiant Swan, Emergence, Shell Pillow, Bumbees, and Tadpole Bowl; Scott Levy, Scott’s Life; Frank Kelso Wolfe, Portrait of Frank for a collection of poems, Love and Bagels.
Articles: “Vote for Your Favorites at Phoenix Village Art Center “, Phoenixville Patch, May 2011; “Virginia ‘Ginny’ Stewart”, Phoenixville Patch, May 2012.
Influences: Theodore Geisel, M.C. Escher, Edward Hopper, Jan Van Eyck, Albrect Durer, Vincent Van Gogh, Salvador Dali, Frans Hals, Henri Rousseau, Johannes Vermeer, Eugene Delacriox, John Singer Sargent.
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