Molly Doe Wensberg
Painting came to me by way of weaving. As a tapestry weaver from 1982-1997, I feel I learned to ‘paint with wool’ and in 1998 I switched to painting full-time. I am primarily a landscape painter, working in oils but also enjoy figurative work and still life. Living in rural New Hampshire, I’m surrounded and influenced by the rugged and ever changing landscape around me. I travel frequently to different parts of New England and enjoy hiking, biking, boating, skiing, snowshoeing and any other activities that get me outside. My love of nature and the outdoors, and the constant variety in color, texture and atmosphere that is prevalent here in New England, are a constant source of inspiration for my work. Paintings often begin with a plein air study, which later becomes a large painting in the studio. Photographs serve to reawaken a memory of a particular moment in time and may inspire a new piece. Paintings can develop from a very small ‘moment’ taken from a larger scene or simply from the colors, atmosphere and/or a feeling evoked that just strikes a chord in my mind.
Though representational in style, my aim is to paint the emotion of a place rather than focusing on specific local information. I remind myself constantly of the expression, ‘less is more’; what is left out of the painting is as important as what is put in. It is the absence, ‘the space between the lines,’ that jogs the senses and invites emotional involvement between the viewer and the painting.
Over the years I’ve tried to push the boundaries a bit more between realism and abstraction. Most recently paintings seem to ‘come out of my head’ rather than from specific locals. I paint more and more with a pallet knife rather than brush to further promote simplification of forms, build up the surface with paint and texture, and provide interesting and unexpected edges, blurred lines and scumbling.
