Terry Strickland is a Birmingham, Alabama based painter who studied Graphic Design at the University of Central Florida. Before transitioning into gallery painting full time, she worked in turns as an illustrator, silk screen artist, courtroom sketch artist and teacher.
Strickland primarily paints portraits, though not as a commission portrait artist, but rather one who chooses portraits as her favored subject matter.
Her pieces often include her subjects in costumed roles or in series with themes that include references to fairy tales or Shakespeare plays, and a series of compositions on shaped canvas called “Awakening” (image above, top) that deal with the transitional period between teenager and adult.
In addition to the gallery on her website you will also find some larger images in the High Resolution and Works available for purchase sections.
Strickland also maintains a blog where she features new paintings, works in progress and often detail images that are somewhat more detailed than those on her website. The latter is nice in that her work, though she appears to bring it to a high degree of finish, often has interesting brush marks and textures when seen close up.
I particularly enjoy her use of backlighting, uplighting and chiaroscuro that gives many of her works a feeling of dimensionality and visual drama.
[Strickland has been on my list for some time, but a tip of the hat to Parka Blogs (@teohyc) for the reminder]
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One response to “Terry Strickland”
the fourth one. holy shit.
this woman had mad technical skill.
and I agree with you, I love her use of lighting as well. Her paintings do have an element of drama in them, but it’s also subtle as well…I can feel as though the figures are staring right at me though. ha.