The Rural We: Cynthia Wick
The artist, who lives in Lenox, will exhibit her joyous "Floraborealis" paintings at the Berkshire Botanical Garden.
Artist Cynthia Wick’s latest exhibition at the Berkshire Botanical Garden in Stockbridge is called “Floraborealis.” It is a collection of her “COVID paintings” that came out of a dark political and difficult time in America, yet the works are vibrant, joyous, and light-filled — sort of how she is when you speak to her. The opening reception is Friday, June 30, from 5 to 8 p.m. and is free and open to the public. Her paintings have appeared in movies such as “Spiderman” (2011), and “It’s Complicated” (2009), as well as on the Op-Ed page of The New York Times.
I’m from LA, and love LA, but my husband, a writer, and I wanted to chuck our city life and find a good country life, with good public schools for our two sons and the ability to make more choices about our work. I wanted Chan, my husband, to have more freedom as a writer. I had stopped working in advertising years before to go into painting. A friend suggested that we look at the Berkshires. I didn’t know where that was, but I went online and researched, and an hour later I said, “we’re moving to a place called Great Barrington,” although we ended up in Lenox. We were here two months later.
When we got here, we didn’t know a soul. But I met Tim Lovett, who led us to Kelley Vickery, who are still our close friends. Extraordinary things have happened to us both since living here. It’s been a great place for us to thrive in our work.
Some people who know my work would say it has changed significantly. When I moved here, I was a plein air painter. I worked small because I felt you could only paint a painting in one sitting. But we live on the edge of the woods. I started really looking at the woods, just watching the patterns and light shift, and took a deep dive into painting that. I introduced collage about 10 years ago, and my work became more abstract. That led to my exhibition, “Into the Woods.”
Then, COVID hit, and I had moment where I was so distraught about politics and the darkness of COVID, I thought about quitting painting to focus on activism. But I realized that my gift is color, light and joy. I decided to paint from memory, and mine my insides for my memories of beauty. Flowers kept emerging in my work. That resulted in the exhibition “The Shape of Color” at the Berkshire Botanical Garden in 2019.These paintings have been a tonic for me to work on the last three years. They’re different because I decided to listen to my inklings at all costs. That led me to some surprising places. People who have seen them in person smile, so it’s clear that they’re emitting some kind of joy.
