About Cora

My work is always focused on the immediate, the physically felt moment and its story whether I am painting as a contemporary realist or creating abstract pieces.

My core belief as an artist is to constantly seek new avenues of expression while developing the skills to achieve them. Early on I moved from figurative painting to large constructive installation pieces. These sculptures were strongly narrative — a key element that remains constant in my work.

After a stint in corporate America I returned to painting full time. My new vision was to explore the depths of beauty and take the art of storytelling to a more intimate level. I have until recently focused largely on still-life and landscape imagery, creating oases as a respite from an overwhelming noisy world. I urge the viewer into my plane of reality; to experience captured moments of light and peer into suggestive shadows. My goal is to connect with the viewer on a visceral level, initially through color and light. With each painting I say “Quick, come catch this moment with me before it is gone”. Often you feel the nearby presence of someone — but just passed from view. You are encouraged to remember walking into a room and experiencing the startling beauty of sunlight on an object and dancing across the table. Stand next to me in the dunes at day’s end and feel the cooling air. Seek the quiet, hear the sibilant sounds of water flowing into a hidden woodland pool. It is through a freely imaginative dialogue between viewer and image that we each bring our own particular memories to enrich the narrative.

The rich tradition of Dutch still-life painting with all its symbolism and intimate scenes of Bonnard and Vuillard have help to shape my work. Like so the New England landscape painters such as George Inness and Dennis Bunker Miller. These artists showed us how to breathe the air and feel the spirit of nature. The nuanced enveloping painting of Mark Rothko has been key in honing my use of color to build emotion and create compositional movement.

More recently I have begun a new collection of abstract pieces as complements to my classical realist work. These are often intuitive and abound in movement, color, line and texture. Whether abstract or realist paintings, I usually begin with a warm tonal study on paper or directly on the canvas — my armature. This is the exciting moment when the image first emerges. It is noisy with dramatic light and shadows that have not yet been tamed. A dozen or more layers of transparent and translucent color will be laid down to build luminosity and lushness. Colors and texture played against one another create a push-pull light effect and establish a highly dimensional world. A friend once said “Art is a thinking man’s game”. I spend time to make careful decisions about edges, rhythm and brush stroke quality. The end goal is to create a piece that will be revisited time again and proved new revelations.

My background includes degrees in both painting and sculpture along with invaluable life experience from my years living and working in Manhattan. With my family, I have lived in several parts of the country; each regional and cultural change becoming part of my voice. While in Tennessee I served on a special advisory board to the Director of the Brooks Museum of Art. After returning to Connecticut in 2002, I was honored to be elected to the Lyme Art Association and then the Salmagundi Club in Manhattan. These art institutions are two of the oldest in the country. Having landed in North Carolina, I realize how much this beautiful state has to offer the artist: sweeping skies and farmlands, the Blue Ridge Mountains, and the marshes and shores of the coastal region.

My work can be found at Bev’s Fine Art in Raleigh, North Carolina and Susan Powell Fine Art in Madison, Connecticut. I am also experienced in working with clients to develop commissioned paintings, either directly or through one of the above galleries. I continue to love gathering people’s stories and shaping them into unique paintings that become part of a family’s heritage.