I call my works "Portraits in Time & Place" because my process begins with taking digital photographs. As a student many years ago, I was taught that the most important thing a worthy photographer must learn was how to "see." To this day, I frame, compose and fit everything I want to record into the camera's view. I almost never crop an image. My images are color studies, simply seen and void of non-essential elements. What I see is what I get.

Although painting and printmaking are still my main focus as an artist, I made a decision several years ago to incorporate color digital photography into my process. Inspired by an awareness of seasonal shifts in nature and a passion for architecture, each photograph I take shares common threads with my painting and printmaking.

As I explore atmospheric light, painterly strokes of color, linear dividers and textural elements, it is the visual information that I gather as I look through the interpretive cameras lens that becomes the subject matter for my work. Over time, after studying and assimilating the information in my photographs, I develop my paintings, monotypes and mixed media collages into stand-alone images.

I always travel with my camera to document places that attract me. My recent subjects have been the Virginia Countryside, the Mojave Desert of California and the canyons and mountains of Utah, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. My body of work also includes images from Italy, Greece and Turkey.

Biography

Born in New York City, Donna Clark lived most of her life in the Lower Hudson Valley region of New York State. She studied painting, printmaking and photography at Bard College where in 1972 she earned a degree in painting. While attending Bard she developed a passionate interest in printmaking, and photography and had the unique opportunity to study monotype printmaking with the renowned master printmaker Matt Phillips.

Donna has exhibited her work through-out New York State, including New York City, and New England. Her work is represented in many individual and corporate collections. Donna has received numerous awards and honors for her work. She has received a CAPS Individual Artist Fellowship in Painting from the New York State Council on the Arts and several Individual Artist Grants for Painting and Printmaking from the Dutchess County Arts Council. Donna resides with her husband in Aldie, Virginia where she maintains her studio at the Old Aldie Rectory.