Colleen Maloney: July 5-28, 2018

Comfort Zone is the place I’ve made when I need a break from our current political environment. Realizing the need to cultivate a world of temporary escapes and moments of joy, I look at what I enjoy, eating out, cooking at home, cutting flowers and visiting nurseries. Two common themes quickly rise to the top—food and flowers. Both take me to a place where I am lost in thought as I assemble a menu for my happiness with colors, shapes, smells, textures and arrangements. It feeds my body and nourishes my soul. Using the same ingredients, I try to recreate those feelings of contentment when I put ink to paper.

The monoprints in Comfort Zone start with a foundation of colorful ink washes on plexiglass. A multi-plate drypoint etching method follows. Each of these one-of-a-kind prints has been through the press multiple times, each layer of color building up a richness and luminosity difficult to achieve in other media.