Freeform Art Gallery’s featured artist for October is Fairfield resident Valerie Gamble, who will be showing a vibrant collection of small mixed-media works entitled Spontaneous Little Worlds.
“The pieces are intriguing in their singularity and profound in their collectivity,” says Gallery Director Leslie Hollis. “Her use of collage and mixed media, drawing, and painting intertwines to create captivating, intimate fantasy-scapes.”
“It all starts with a blank piece of paper, usually 4×4”, and a pile of cut-outs from magazines,” says Gamble. “I begin by creating a background—with watercolor, ink pads, or whatever feels right in the moment. And then, in a spontaneous outburst, a little world begins to emerge.”
Gamble says she loves working within the boundaries of a small blank area. “The edges of the square give me such a limited, contained space, and yet within it, I feel completely free. It becomes a world that can extend far beyond the page, like a small fragment of a much bigger picture, a glimpse or detail of a world that continues beyond what we can see. It’s much like those intimate details in nature that reveal their beauty only when we slow down enough to notice them.
“For me, it is in this close, almost tender relationship with that little piece of paper that creativity begins to unfold using collage, watercolor, ink pads, pens.”
Spontaneous Little Worlds is showing through October 24, with an opening reception on Friday, October 2, from 5:30 to 9:00 p.m. Freeform Art Gallery is located at 508 North 2nd Street.