TAWA at 45
The Exhibition
Donna Payton
Dawning Awareness
acrylic, oil, spray paint on wood panel, 2020; 24″h x 36″w
Donna Payton received her MFA from Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles, California in sculpture and painting. She creates high relief collages, ceramic sculptures, paintings, drawings, and installations combining recycled objects, natural materials, and traditional media. Among the awards in her career are a New Jersey Print and Paper Grant from the Brodsky Center at Rutgers University and a collage award from The National Collage Society at the Berman Museum Show celebrating 100 years of collage’s recognition as an art form. She has exhibited in galleries and museums in California, Florida, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Washington, DC, and New Zealand. Payton’s work is in private and corporate collections, including Southeastern Banks, Citibank of Florida, Cleveland Clinic in Florida, Novo Nordisk, Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, AtlantiCare New Jersey, New Jersey State Museum, Jersey City Museum, Zimmerli Art Museum, New Jersey State Council on the Arts, and Hunterdon Museum of Art. Payton has curated international and local exhibitions. She has taught painting, drawing, 2D and 3D design classes at Brookdale Community College, Ocean County College, and high schools in St. Louis and Los Angeles. During COVID, Payton was featured in an online Vibrnz interview, and her work appeared in several online exhibitions. The artist works in many media in her central New Jersey studio and currently teaches at the Arts Council of Princeton.
“Philosophically and spiritually my goal is to visually convey the wonder of this miraculous universe and our profound interconnectedness within it. I am moved by the web of natural phenomena, planetary cycles, universal seen and unseen energies, our relationships with each other and all that is. On a technical level, using shape systems such as stripes and waving lines alongside loose brush strokes, drips and sprays of paint, present a compositional grounding for the images of brain and thumbprint which signify humanity.”