Download Artist Statement

As a child, crayons were my love...using colors rich and vibrant, deep and dark.  Now as an adult, each color evokes an emotion within me that I portray through my work.  Each piece of art that I create has a special ambience.  In creating monoprints, it’s a little more fun and serendipitous whereas painting is a more direct and controlled process often done with just palette knife and my fingers.  There’s a lot of throught, exaggeration, and excitement as part of the process of my art making.

The evolution of my artwork comes from a fascination of the outdoors, whether it’s walking down a wooded path, a city street or sitting long a river.  From there I take my attraction to abstract shapes of colors- lights and darks and execute my palette knife visual studies rather quickly, trying to capture the moment by mimicking the scene and transpiring the sensual qualities of sound and temperature.  After bringing these paintings inside to the studio, another painting, generally a more abstract, larger painting is born more loose and freeing.

Trish Hurley received her BFA in Painting from Swain School of Design and her MFA in Painting from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.

As a native New Englander, she now resides in Newport, R.I. and instructs at Community College of Rhode Island and the Westport Art Group in Westport MA, as well as privately.