Johanna Riddle Daytona Beach Artist

 

Art League of Daytona Beach
433 South Palmetto Avenue
Daytona Beach, Florida 32114
Tel: 386-947-7103

Johanna Riddle Daytona Beach Artist

 My work is truly mixed media, involving many processes and including a number of types of water-soluble media. I begin by creating a collection of painted, printed, and chemically altered papers. It's a slow and beautiful undertaking, always filled with surprises and discoveries. I often incorporate found papers from my repository of family archives—a piece of music, a letter, a page from an old ledger. It's important to me to include the voices and essence of those who came before me. The paper that I create and incorporate forms the foundation of my design. I craft each piece in layers, freely combining and adding paint, watercolor dyes, watercolor pencils, sumi and gel inks, gloss varnish, and other media to develop richness, depth and glow.  Lately, I have been incorporating pen and ink as the final layer in my work. The evolution of each piece is a slow process requiring a certain brand of meditative Zen. My art is all about letting the process unfold. It cannot be hurried.

Though I always have a dedicated point of departure--a sketch, a dream, an event, my environment, a piece of literature--each work inevitably begins to take on a life of its own. The process is a bit like beginning to write a story, then standing back in wonder as the story continues to write itself, inserting unanticipated twists and turns and details that offer additional layers of richness and complexity and meaning. I love that part of the process—that feeling of working with the piece, and not simply on the piece. There are times that I have to wait for the next part of the story to reveal itself.  Sometimes, the road ahead is so clear and intricately defined that I can’t get it down on paper fast enough.

I will always believe that the magic of art lies in its ability to form a kinship between the viewer and the artist.  In that spark of connection, two worlds and perspectives merge. The artist reaches across time and tells her story. The viewer makes fresh interpretations, discovers intricate details, layers their own culture, values, life experiences over the image. A richer story is born, a new voice heard. Each piece of art ultimately becomes a never-ending story.