April Artist Spotlight – Meet Cynthia Demir

I have been drawing as far back as I can remember. At the age of two I drew circles with smaller circles around the larger circles. I have vivid memories from nursery school of first using finger paints. I can still remember the magic of how the colors blended together as I moved the paint around with my fingers. My mother was an artist so there were always pens, pencils, and paints available.  She even had an easel set up in the living room with an oil painting of my sister and I. I remember the soft gobs of paint on her wooden palette and the smell of oil paint. We had paper taped to the walls of our playroom so as to be able to draw at any time.

     

During my summers in junior high school I took classes at the deCordova Museum. The emphasis was on experimentation with a wide variety of media. I used pen and ink with watercolor and tissue paper to create underwater sea creatures. In high school I took art every year as one of my major subjects. We worked with pencil, charcoal, oil pastels and oil paints. By senior year one of my favorite projects was a portrait I did in a woodcut. It was one of my first serious attempts at printmaking. I always knew I wanted to go to art school after graduation. When I arrived at Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, the drawing and design courses were very intense. It was the best feeling in the world to stay up all night working on design projects. One of my favorite classes was etching. An assistant professor told me to think of the etching plate as the universe. I approached painting and etching in the same way, creating an imaginary world, not just a rendering of something I see or feel. I also took an intensive course in lithography during winter session which was a six week period between semesters. Drawing with a lithograph crayon brought out the texture of the stone. The textures seemed to suggest images from my subconscious like some mythical beings from another world. By senior year I was majoring in painting. One of the studios was in an old bank building. It had a high glass ceiling with the sun streaming in, colors reflecting off the walls and metal framework. There was also a large paper sculpture of an elephant in the room which added to the atmosphere. The studio reminded me of some of Matisse’s interiors.

 

     

I received a BFA in painting from RISD and then worked for a while as a free lance artist. The following year I went to Simmons College to get a teaching degree. Eventually I worked at a newspaper and an advertising agency. I studied fashion design and worked at a childrenswear company but what I loved most was painting and drawing. After getting married and having children, I continued drawing and sewing. I sometimes did quick sketches of my husband and daughters. I joined a group of artists who set up drawing sessions where we all chipped in to pay for models. We added lighting, drapery and props to create interesting compositions. I was always inspired by Matisse and some of the expressionist painters. An exhibit at the MFA in Boston, “Matisse in the Studio” was especially interesting. On display along with his paintings and sculptures were some of the objects he used in his compositions. The way he incorporated some of the same objects in very different styles of painting showed what even the simplest object could inspire.

 

    

 

Recently I have been doing watercolor and ink paintings of the mountains and lakes of New Hampshire. I’ve focused on the effects of sunlight at various times of day and the shadows from the constant movement of the clouds as they are reflected on the lakes.