Feel your colors sigh as you enter. A sacred cathedral studio welcomes you to a garden of the heart, where paintings mirror and magnify the flourishing garden within.
Acclaimed international artist Dorothy Fagan draws inspiration for her life-size paintings and textiles from her woodland garden in Mathews County. For 50 years, she’s aligned her creative energies; gardening, painting, creating textiles with the nature of this sacred place at the vortex of the Chesapeake Bay watershed and the Atlantic.
The healing effect of the art was always her intention. Soothing, transporting herself back into harmony with nature when her world was rife with trauma, she began painting in gardens when her mother was diagnosed with cancer. Self-expression is a catalyst for healing.
TWO SISTERS ON A MISSION
‘Who is the sister?’ Fagan begins her lively art and garden talk with a quest. Pointing to the colorful abstract woodlands painting with fractured winter branches against a sparkling sky, the painting titled “Two Sisters” reveals within itself, a vibrant meadow tucked away beside a pond ~ answering the question that drove the artist to paint for five decades.
Painted ten years before her mother passed away, the mystery of two sisters unraveled slowly across two lifetimes. Now Fagan’s artistry speaks their mother-daughter legacy. Pauline Fagan was a champion for wellness and creativity. She taught Dorothy to garden, to paint, to play piano, to work with textiles and design home decor. Now their message of healing hearts flourishes in museum collections, licensed art, textiles for home decor.
A GLOBAL MESSAGE OF HEALING FROM VIRGINIA
Installed in hospitals from Riverside in Gloucester and Newport News to Boston Children’s Hospital, and Camp LeJeune Mental Health Center, “Fagan’s art is a healing balm to be felt and experienced” says Sarah Muehlbauer in The Magic of Color for CODAmagazine.
“Fagan interprets art as a way of ‘wrapping ourselves in the colors of the light.’ The light of which the artist speaks is visible in all of her creations; a light that generates a most mystical glow perceptible by only the most sensitive soul,” notes curator Georgia Massari in the DressMe 2020 exhibition catalogue for MADS Gallery, in Milan, Italy.
Fagan’s paintings and textiles have been exhibited by Longwood Center for the Visual Arts, Farmville, VA, Musee de La Grande Vigne, Dinan, France, City University of New York, the Pastel Society of America, and The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond.
VISIT THE STUDIO IN COBBS CREEK
Open Saturdays 10AM - 3PM or by appointment
Call or text 804-366-0990 or
email dorothy@dorothyfagan.com
Visit the artist’s website at www.dorothyfagan.com