Art is a vital component of any community, and Cleveland County has no shortage of amazing artists who work in a myriad of different styles and media. Here, we feature three local artists showcasing the diversity and talent that lives on right here in the heart of our community.
ACRYLIC ON CANVAS
Dionne Woods
Dionne Woods has lived in south Oklahoma City her whole life. Her children go to the same high school as she and her husband did.
She is completely self-taught and has been painting since 2010. Dionne works out her home studio and sells all her works online. In fact, 90% of Dionne’s artwork is shipped out of state or hand delivered by her driver of five years.
Dionne’s artistic journey began with furniture, and that led to canvas. Recently, she has started a line of wearable art. She also coaches over 500 other creatives through online tutorials (some free and some fee-based) and in-person workshops.
Dionne’s current medium of choice is acrylic on canvas. She says she loves large florals, as well as finger painting smaller works using a clay-based paint, DIY Paint, for which she is a retailer.
Her philosophy is community over competition, as she spends her days teaching. She encourages bold color usage while finding unique applications for paint tools.
Her business, The Turquoise Iris, has its own web page (TheTurquoiseIris.com); Look for her also on Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, and YouTube.
DRIED PAINT TECHNIQUE
Leticia Galizzi
A native of Belo Horizonte, Brazil, Leticia Galizzi has lived in the United States for 17 years—the past three in Norman. She holds a master of arts degree in visual arts from the University of Oklahoma. Prior to that, she took classes at Yale School of Art and studied art at the Guignard School of Arts in Brazil.
Leticia maintains a home studio, feeling fortunate to live in the house of well-known architect Arn Henderson. Her works have been shown in Brazil, New Haven, Connecticut and New York City. She has a solo exhibition planned at Mainsite Gallery in Norman in 2021.
“Ornament motifs in my work originated mostly from personal memory, from tiles found in places I visited during my childhood years in colonial towns in Brazil. These range from the sophisticated to the most pedestrian house tiles. In my paintings, tile ornament patterns show up as a layer of structured planes that form dynamic grids resembling wrought-iron fences, as one can often see through them,” Leticia says.
“I came to associate these grids with the structure of rules and beliefs we internalize throughout life, a structure that ends up framing our decisions, as well as our fears and desires,” she continued. “Free gesture appears in my work as another layer of paint applied with chance brushstrokes over the previous layers of tile grids. At these moments I paint automatically, informed by the history of automatism in art and by the Jungian theory of the Shadow.”
Currently, Leticia uses mostly dried paint, acrylic and charcoal and oil. She developed the dried paint technique, which involves painting, waiting for the paint to dry, then applying it dry to the canvas.
Leticia’s artwork is represented at Mainsite Gallery in Norman. She’s active on social media: visit her website at LeticiaGalizzi.com, where she also houses her blog), as well as on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter.
MULTIMEDIA
Nick Lillard
In his artworks, Nick Lillard pushes the boundaries between recycling, functional items, sculpture, awareness of materials, social happenings and what art can therapeutically provide to an individual. He shares that, “being a creative person means one is influenced by the overlap of science, art and philosophy. Together this collective pursuit enriches a person’s life. This act of focused curiosity in turn expands understanding and happiness throughout society.”
Steel, recycled plastics and ceramics are the three materials most frequently used by Nick, although he enjoys dabbling with different materials as well.
Nick, who earned his bachelor’s degree in sculpture from the University of Oklahoma, credits the staff of OU’s art department as being seminal to his artistic development.
Nick’s works have been displayed across the United States and overseas. A bronze sculpture was displayed in New York City as part of a National Sculpture Society event. Four of his sculptures are located on the OU Norman campus, including one on Evans Hall (the administration building) and another in a niche over the sculpture department’s door. The Jackson Elementary School Tiger, also located in Norman, is probably his most well-known sculpture. Placed there in 2005, the students named it Raja, and it has become a part of the school’s culture. Within the past few years, Nick’s work has been shown at immersive exhibits in Oklahoma City.
Nick is currently working on a collaborative project that will open to the public in approximately a year. Keep an eye out for this outdoor art installation that will be traveling around Oklahoma, called The Creaturealm.
