Penelope Jane Guyton

Art should move the viewer. I don’t want to stand unmoved and disinterested in front of a piece of art. I want to be drawn in by the way the artist has tackled the subject, be it abstract or narrative (I paint both).I want to be entranced, fascinated, intrigued and challenged by the use of color and texture, form and line. I want to see the history of the picture showing up in subtle layers, unexpected areas of color, medium or form. I want to be moved to stand in front of a work of art and contemplate it from many angles, not just the visible, but the invisible, the intangible, the story, the emotional content. I am moved by Joan Mitchell’s statement - “A rage to paint,” and I stand amazed in front on Joan Snyder’s great works that use not only paint and canvas, but earth, seeds, herbs and cloth, to conjure up the rich earthiness of a woman’s experience.

My goal as an artist is to get out of my own way so that my innate ability and my alignment with the muse, can carry the burden of creating the picture, rather than my ego that wants only to control. I am tempted to use the word, “spirit” here, but I think I’ll stay in the territory of allowing an image to come through me, expressing something either profound or playful, delicious or dismaying. Something is always waiting there, longing to be expressed.

I see my art, whether abstract or narrative, as a demonstration of the connection we all have to the collective unconscious and a tribute to my teachers and to all the hours of standing in front of the easel, painting and painting until something inside me cries, “Stop.”

Born in Harrow, England and now living in Alexandria, VA, Penelope (Penny Jane) was identified as a gifted child at the age of five. She reports her strongest memory was the moment when the head teacher summoned her with her mother, and said, “We don’t know what to do with Penny, she doesn’t draw like a five-year old should.” Perhaps at that time in England, they just didn’t know.

Penny's degrees are in Communication (BA, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA) and Complementary Health Care (MA, Greenwich University, Hilo HI). She is certified as a coach by the International Coach Federation. Her career spans management, teaching, holistic health care, coaching, program management of Graduate Programs for Newfield Network (national coaching school) and private life-coaching practice using art as a means of accessing unconscious insight.

About ten years ago, Penny took the leap back to that moment in her childhood when artistic creativity was put away and taken out only in private. Today she is an artist who coaches, and whose art informs and enriches her coaching, and her life.

Her studies began eight years ago at the Vienna Art Society with master teacher, Lassie Corbett, studying Sumi-e and collage, and continuing at the Alexandria Art League in abstract and narrative art, with master teachers Beverly Ryan, Marsha Staiger, Rosemary Luckett and Joyce McCarten.

Penny has exhibited in juried shows in Vienna and at the Alexandria Art League and gained a Merit Award at the annual Art League student’s show in 2009. She has painted several pictures under commission for individuals in the Northern Virginia area .