Artist hopes work brings happiness
Meredith Dement paints in a custom-built studio detached from her 100-year-old North Side home. She lays down color, completely covering the canvas. She dips another brush into another color and cleans it on the newly painted canvas. The brush strokes leave stains, streaks, and smudges, a hint of chaos. Suddenly shapes emerge. “There,” she said, “it’s a tree, or a cliff. It suggests something.” She then moves forward, completing the piece, turning it into what it’s meant to become.
As an artist, Dement has two main goals. One is to bring pleasure and wholeness to others.
“It’s simple,” she said, “I want people to be happy.”
Her second goal is to “consistently represent a map of the subconscious encountering the conscious.”
Her brush is guided by something within and the final product is full of meaning, a sort of map, the key being whatever is relevant to the viewer. There is an arm or is it a branch? There is a man or is it a mountain?
Dement, 67, is a colorist who uses color and segmentation of space to involve the viewer emotionally in her work. Her personal style incorporates aspects of impressionism, surrealism, and 17th-century Dutch landscape painting, among others. She has been painting for more than 40 years and studied with well-known artists in California and Oregon. Her portfolio includes work she did when she was 10. Even then, her use of space and color was balanced and tugged at the subconscious.
She has shown her work at the Portland Art Museum and galleries in Oregon, Wisconsin, and Seattle, among others. Since settling in Spokane four years ago she has had a good number of art openings. This coming week, she will have two.
The first will be Wednesday at the MAX at Mirabeau Park Hotel. The event, a monthly art show called First Wednesday, will display Dement’s series of landscapes entitled “Weather Front” and “Still Places.”
First Wednesday runs from 5 to 7 p.m. and includes wine tasting and hors d’oeuvres. This month’s wine will come from Penfolds Winery. Half a dozen area jewelry artists also will be showing their work.
First Wednesday generally features only one artist, but this month Dennis Manley, director of food and beverage, thought it only fitting to include jewelry. “It is that time of year,” he said, “and besides giving visitors the opportunity to see artwork, they can also buy a unique last-minute gift.” The jewelry will include conversation pieces, wearable art, sculpted pieces, exotic pendants and some other surprises.
The jewelry is a collection from some of the designers who regularly show at the Artist’s Tree Gallery in downtown Spokane, where Dement’s second opening, a series of new works, will be on display during downtown’s First Friday.
Though Dement is content to stay in the shadows, letting the work speak for itself, she will attend both openings.
“Creating art is a lonely pastime, but when it’s shared, when people respond to it, it breaks the loneliness,” she said.