BJ Thrailkill

Artist Statement

I grew up in rural Maryland in the 1950s and ‘60s. We were very fortunate to have an accomplished artist as a neighbor; she taught weekly painting classes for children in my neighborhood. We were quite young and painted with oils and sketched outdoors. I now realize how fortunate I was to have had this experience so early in life.

I took classes in painting and sculpture in my early 20s. I painted in acrylics, mostly from dreams, but also from images of urban landscapes. Over the many years since I have sketched and dabbled but didn’t re-engage fully until my children departed for college. I now paint primarily in oil and my subject matter is mostly objects of nature.
I have a strong, almost binary aesthetic; I can be pretty picky about how items should be arranged and what constitutes a compelling composition. This sense of alignment becomes a governing hand in my decisions of what I wish to paint. I am quirky by nature, and my paintings reflect this. I enjoy bringing to life ideas that deviate from absolute representation and move toward a peculiar realism. I often observe subtle beauty in common ordinary objects.