Being True to My Creative Self...New Work by Aleta Pippin at Pippin Contemporary

    SANTA FE, NM, June 18, 2014 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Aleta Pippin, artist and gallery owner, has developed an intriguing show for the continuation of My path of Exploration series. "I'm off on another tangent," Pippin says with a chuckle.

The new exhibit is called "Being True to My Creative Self." A self-described "energetic abstractionist," Pippin has recently expanded the oil and acrylic painting she is known for to include mixed-media works using paint and monotypes on slabs and panels of acrylic with LED lighting. "I love technology and incorporating it into the artwork," she says, playing with swatches of colored Acrylite in her Agua Fria Street studio.

The result of her recent exploration is painted panels, some painted on front and back, housed in handmade wooden box frames and lit in various ways with LED lighting, known for its shelf life. "With the LED lights, I feel there is opportunity to increase the visual depth," the artist says. "And, it is interactive with my collectors giving them the ability to change the color and movement!"

Pippin has been creating since she could hold a pencil or crayon. By 4, she was drawing horses. By her teens she was drawing figures and creating posters for school. Then her life took a turn to marriage, having children, and developing her own business, Front Office Business Centers in Houston, Texas. She began Front Office in 1984 and sold it in 2008. By then she had semi-retired to Santa Fe.

In 1992, she began to paint. Bored by her figurative pieces, Pippin turned to abstraction. "I decided I wanted to become an abstract artist; it fit my personality," she says. "It allows me to be more in my imagination. Since I'm about color and materials, abstraction offers that freedom." Pippin has had a successful career as a self-taught artist, experimenting on many occasions with new colors and media. "I'm always exploring and I must say, my collectors - they get it, it doesn't seem to bother them," she says gratefully.

"Being an artist is a life journey as well as an interior journey. When you have those accidents, those accidental moments, you respect and actually appreciate them," Pippin says. Adding different media to her craft meant Pippin had to learn some new skills. Wanting to size her own panels, the artist bought herself a small table saw to cut through the acrylic panel without melting it. Appropriately for an artist opening a show on Independence Day, Pippin is someone who sees art as an issue of freedom.

"My paintings are about energy (vibration), color, and freedom," she says in an artist's statement. "They are a spontaneous expression, flowing freely through me. When I'm in the zone of freely expressing, I'm deeply involved in the evolution of the paintings, acting as a vessel through which the energy is flowing. When the painting is completed, I stand back to view it and become very excited to see the amazing color, energy of marks, and overall feeling of the piece."

And few things have excited her as much as the new works with Acrylite, paint and LED lights, which she has created over the last year while juggling her mother's final illness, her father's approaching 90th birthday and work at her eponymous gallery, and in her 7th year on the board of the Santa Fe Gallery Association.

"I put extra stress on myself trying to do something different and get it ready. All my shows are called 'My Path of Exploration' and that's what they are about," Pippin explains. One happy accident was the result of pulling monoprints with (Santa Fe printmaster) Ron Pokrasso. "I glued a monoprint on one acrylic panel over mark-making. He was looking at it and commented how the light shining through made both sides equally as beautiful, as well as an interactive piece for the collector," Pippin said. "I thought, 'Wow! He gets it.'"

Pippin still loves the richness of oil paint and the speed, energy and freedom of acrylic paint. However she's still working to incorporate the light and is more focused on that goal these days. "There's a freedom of feeling like it's a wide-open spectrum and I can explore it however I want to. I like things that are shrouded a little bit. I don't want the act of using LED to become a crutch. The artwork still has to be a complete painting - cohesive and attractive," remarks Pippin.

"As an artist, you're always tempted to go back to your comfort zone, but it doesn't even feel good anymore," Pippin explains. "With these new paintings, it feels like that's as much as my imagination can construe at this point in time. It has a real energy."

Pippin's show opening on July 4 will be up through July 21. A new video profile of the artist is available for viewing at https://vimeo.com/98278358.

Located at the gateway to historic Canyon Road, Pippin Contemporary, founded May 2011 by artist Aleta Pippin, is committed to showing abstract art that is fresh and vibrant, as well as collectible. Pippin Contemporary's artists, selected for their energetic and tactile expressions, celebrate life with colorful and authentic insights, expanding the realm of possibilities in their artwork. Their expressions range from abstract paintings to sculpture in stone, metal and glass, bronze, and kinetic sculpture.

Pippin Contemporary provides a sensory experience of color and mood.

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