I am excited to exhibit, for the first time, my new series “Healing Garden” at the Chesapeake Framing Company in Kensington, MD, during the month of July 2025. Together with my three students, Rose, Ruth, and Blu, you are invited to enjoy a lovely variety of artworks.
What is “Healing Garden”? Paintings in this series are done in acrylics on different surfaces (Yupo, watercolor paper, canvas, black cardboard) and are on ode to gardens. A broad topic, one could say, that started with a particular garden: that of my grandmother’s in Prague, Czech Republic. I grew up in a multi-generational home and my grandmother’s garden, adjacent to the house, was the perfect place to spend my childhood. Freshly grown fruits and vegetables filled up my belly and lovely flowers filled up vases around the house. Afternoon naps under a walnut tree, games of hide and seek with my brother and cousins, dirt on fingers that snapped strawberries my grandparents claimed were not ready for picking. The list could go on. This garden, as inspiration for my artwork, has quickly metamorphosed into any and all gardens and spots in nature that bring about a sense of joy and safety. Friends now send me photos of flowers from a local farmer’s market with notes on how much joy these bring to them. Others share images from their gardens: showing off their hard work and years in the making. We all, it seems to me, seek spaces of beauty and respite.
What is “Healing Garden”? Paintings in this series are done in acrylics on different surfaces (Yupo, watercolor paper, canvas, black cardboard) and are on ode to gardens. A broad topic, one could say, that started with a particular garden: that of my grandmother’s in Prague, Czech Republic. I grew up in a multi-generational home and my grandmother’s garden, adjacent to the house, was the perfect place to spend my childhood. Freshly grown fruits and vegetables filled up my belly and lovely flowers filled up vases around the house. Afternoon naps under a walnut tree, games of hide and seek with my brother and cousins, dirt on fingers that snapped strawberries my grandparents claimed were not ready for picking. The list could go on. This garden, as inspiration for my artwork, has quickly metamorphosed into any and all gardens and spots in nature that bring about a sense of joy and safety. Friends now send me photos of flowers from a local farmer’s market with notes on how much joy these bring to them. Others share images from their gardens: showing off their hard work and years in the making. We all, it seems to me, seek spaces of beauty and respite.
Now that you know about the garden, let’s look at the healing part of the series title. With twists and turns in my personal life and what is going on in our world, I am creating this series to heal whatever may be healed: to journey through thoughts and hurts and joys and to keep living in a more conscious way. I focus on nature as it fills me up with hope and excitement. I focus on healing because it is crucial for a healthier way of living. I create and think of my grandmother, family, friends, and loved ones. I open space for processing of my inner life and I always, upon finishing each Healing Garden artwork, come out stronger and with a gentler heart. No matter what your story is, we can find ways to each other through beauty and pausing to heal.
The Healing Garden series looks different from my other artworks (check out my Visual Insights into Life’s Beauty and Embodiment Series): these new works can be achieved only through a slow and detail-oriented process. I reference photos and capture generic floral shapes and filling them up with bright colors and then adding lines and circles and more flowers. I am not entirely sure where this style came from. A combination of visual sights? Hand-painted eggs, Moroccan tiles, abstract art, Art Nouveau architecture in Prague, and many more things imprinted themselves in my brain. I am also playing with sizes and shapes: some paintings are on Yupo, others live on a large round canvas.
I hope you enjoy “Artistic Bonds” at the Chesapeake Framing Company in Kensington, MD. Tuesday through Sunday, 10am to 6pm. July 1-31, 2025. Come see the artworks!
The Healing Garden series looks different from my other artworks (check out my Visual Insights into Life’s Beauty and Embodiment Series): these new works can be achieved only through a slow and detail-oriented process. I reference photos and capture generic floral shapes and filling them up with bright colors and then adding lines and circles and more flowers. I am not entirely sure where this style came from. A combination of visual sights? Hand-painted eggs, Moroccan tiles, abstract art, Art Nouveau architecture in Prague, and many more things imprinted themselves in my brain. I am also playing with sizes and shapes: some paintings are on Yupo, others live on a large round canvas.
I hope you enjoy “Artistic Bonds” at the Chesapeake Framing Company in Kensington, MD. Tuesday through Sunday, 10am to 6pm. July 1-31, 2025. Come see the artworks!