Paintings » Peggy Guichu

Abundance	Dress	Fairies In Grapevines	Ladies' Night Out
Searching For The Source

Peggy Guichu - Artist Statement

I've been painting since I was 30.  It took me that long to pick up a pencil and draw a stick figure.  But I fell in love with watercolors and sold my very first paintings right out of the framer's shop. That encouraged me and pushed me onward.

I spent the next 10 years painting and selling at art shows and galleries throughout the northwest.  In the late 1980's I started Nevada Artist's Association in Reno, NV.  In the early 90's I opened up "Two Sisters Gallery" in Reno, NV.  It was a working gallery and I had so many wonderful artists and teachers.  We taught everything from paper making to advanced oil painting classes.  When the shopping mall folded in 1995 I closed and went back to selling through weekend art shows and galleries again in California, Nevada and Colorado.  I'm in three private collections, two in New York and one in London. 

In 2003 I moved to Phoenix, AZ.  I had started dabbling in oils before the move, but didn't get really serious until 2004.  What a wonderful medium.  I had done work in watercolor, pen and ink and graphite, but oil painting was entirely different and exciting.  The very first painting I did was "Flames".  I had "Heat" and "Unity" accepted into the first national juried art show I entered, American Juried Art Salon for the Spring/Summer 2006 show. "Roses" was just accepted in American Juried Art Salon for Fall/Winter 2007 show.

I have just been honored by Santa Fe Art World to join their group of artists, October, 2007. 

One of the most complimentary things that happened to me as an artist was back in 1994 at my gallery in Reno, NV.  An elderly gentleman, Mr. Zacharias from Long Island, came into my gallery.  He said he was collecting work from artist's he felt would be notable someday and wanted me to sell him my most favorite painting, which I did.  A week later I got a poster of Van Gogh's "Iris" and a letter with a nice check inside asking me to paint my interpretation of this painting.  He added my paintings into his collection he was exhibiting in Soho, N.Y.  That was the third time someone had challenged me in that way and I felt very honored.  The first was by my voice coach, Mr. Rick Peal who believed in me and gave me the skills to sing and stand up in front of a crowd and the second was Mr. Endres, my drama coach.  Mr. Endres picked me out of a crowd and taught me my most important lessons.  The first was that with hard and tenacious work I could accomplish anything and also that by recreating in the abstract of theatre one could realize their true self.

I am a self taught artist.  I've always felt that it was cheating to use other artist's techniques.  Good or not I want to be authentic.  
 
How does my art affect you?  Does it make you feel something new or old?  Do you smile when you look into the eyes of "Sparkle"?  How can you not fall in love with "Mama"?  Don't you want to go to those red mountains and feel the colors?  Press your face into those flowers and smell their fragrance?  "Frenzy" still raises my blood pressure.  I painted that one between Thanksgiving and Christmas 2006. 

That's what painting is about for me.  I love to pick out a canvas and just let it happen.  With abstract art I can create in the moment.  No preconceived ideas.  I just put some color on the canvas and keep going.  I can tell you the exact paint stroke I did that started "Red Mountains".  I had no idea it would turn out to be a leaf.  (According to one Juror, he still couldn't figure out that it was a leaf.  I regress, sorry.)  If you look real closely you'll find a little fairy sitting on one of them.  Many times when I've finished a painting, I find the real picture when I turn it upside down.  That seems to reflect life, don't you think?

Have I won awards?  Yes.  Is it important?  Maybe.  It gives me a boost of confidence, kicks in my competitive side and it's always a compliment, but as an artist I would have to say no.  The only thing that is important to me is painting, creating, working with my hands, escaping into that other realm and expressing me at that moment.  To me it's my own theatre, where I can write my own plays and listen to the music that explodes from a finished piece.

I want my art to make you feel something.  No, the truth is that I want you to know me.  That's my arrogance as an artist.  I have something to say and I want you to listen.  Hear my joy, my pain, my confusion, my who or whatever I am at that moment.  Each is a self portrait of me.