SANTA FE, NM.- Abstract artist, Joan Maureen Collins, announced that paintings from her newest series, “Reverie Unbound”, are the subject of a solo exhibit at Globe Fine Art Gallery, in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The exhibit runs from May 10 to June 7, 2024.

Throughout her twenty-eight year art career, Joan’s observations of the natural world and the inspiration she receives from spending time in nature, have been a driving force behind her creativity. In this new series, Reverie Unbound, Joan steps away from the landscape to create paintings that are deeply personal and inspired by her daydreams. The resulting canvases are deeply layered and yet exhibit a translucent quality.

To initiate this new series, the artist sat in quiet meditation to consider the art she had created to date. In doing so she allowed herself to dream. The paintings in Reverie Unbound reflect her ability and indulgence in daydreaming and in play. For her, a dream is perspective and are deeply layered, much like the canvases in Reverie Unbound. There is much hiding underneath the surface, and she has made layers that no one will ever see. As Joan explained, “Daydreaming is the fuel or kindling for my creativity. I feel abstraction is the perfect artistic language to interpret those dreams.”

In this deeply personal body of work, Joan describes her artwork in human terms. For example, simple geometric shapes found on the surface layer of some of the canvases act as a space to “take a breath or as a resting place from the chaos of abstraction,” as the artist explains. For Joan, this concept equates to the fact that our lives are so busy that we also need to find a moment for rest. A dot is not a dot but becomes “a whisper of a dot.” And she ponders how her paintings will feel to the viewer by expressing, “If my paintings spark something in someone, where will it carry them?”

While layers add visual depth, she transmits inner meanings through the gestural quality of the whole painting. Once completed, Joan titles her paintings in a manner that reveals her thoughts and becomes a narrative for the process. She wants us to hear her voice through titles such as Silent Symphony, which for her translates into “Life is whispering, can you hear it?”

Joan works from her studio in Scottsdale, Arizona, and over the past twenty-eight years, her artwork has been featured in exhibitions nationally and internationally. She has exhibited extensively in Phoenix and Scottsdale. Joan has been an invited interviewee for the Phoenix Art Museum, Artist Spotlight program. Most recently, her art has been exhibited in New York City, SCOPE Miami Art Fair, and ArtBox Expo Basel, Basel-Mulhouse, Switzerland. She has been featured in prestigious publications such as Phoenix Magazine and Luxe Magazine.

The exhibition at Globe Fine Art in Santa Fe, NM, is her first solo show at the gallery.