Donna Pinter has been a professional artist for over twenty years. She resides in historic Roswell, a unique community just north of Atlanta, Georgia. During this time she has participated in more than fifty group exhibitions and over thirty solo exhibitions (the first of which was at age eleven). A graduate of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine arts and the York Academy of Arts, Pinter has received numerous awards, grants, scholarships and commissions for her work. Her list of publications and featured articles are equally impressive, regionally, she has appeared in Southern Homes, Peachtree Magazine, Philadelphia Magazine, Arts Southwest and Points North. Her national credits include PM Magazine, Rendezvous Magazine and Angel Times. Internationally, she has been interviewed on the Japanese equivalent of 60 Minutes.
From an early age, Pinter's goal was to become either an artist or a healer. After her first trip to the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine arts, her fate was sealed. Pinter's distinctiveness can be described in terms of her daring use of color and bold gestural style. She built national recognition from a series of dancers created in pastel; her technique imbibed each composition with life, accurately capturing the illusive spirit and essence of each dancer. This series led to her commission with the Russian Boshow Ballet, and later commissions by the Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center, the Boston Ballet, Ballet Rotaru and the late Rudolph Nureyev. Also widely recognized are Pinter's landscapes, which can more vividly be called "dreamscapes". They are windows into another dimension. Places she has been physically and spaces she frequents only in her wildest dreams.
Undulating across brightly-hued surfaces, Donna Pinter's koi creations are the substance of dreams. For Pinter, the act of painting is spiritual, transporting her to places she has been, and other-worldly spheres one can only imagine. Entitled "Tranquilly in Motion," this selection of pieces features the artist's love of koi. These enigmatic compositions originated during Pinter's first trip to Japan. It was during this trip that she began sketching the fish and contemplating their meditative qualities, long cherished by the Japanese. She returned mesmerized by these creatures, seeking them out in the United States. Not strictly ornamental, but transitional in nature, they spoke to Pinter on this level as well. At once, Pinter's koi are transformative, effervescent and provocative. Rendered in oils, this collection is a delightful burst of monumental color, compositions of koi in suspended in aqueous environments that fully relay Pinter's passionate love of color, large gesture and expressive imagery. Truly a talent to be seen, Ms. Pinter is also an accomplished potter. Although the artist considers herself predominantly a painter, in 1991 she launched a line of ceramic dinnerware and accessories sold by Nieman Marcus and Drexel Heritage. In the koi series, however, her ceramic pieces serve as transitional elements as well. The koi images are carried from gallery walls seamlessly into three dimensional spaces through the delicate surfaces of her vessels. The overall effect of Donna Pinter's body of work is as soothing as it is stimulating.
Pinter challenges the viewer's perception of reality through her unique portrayal of the world as only an artist can. In her words the artist addresses the dual nature of her work- "I'm interested in what lies beneath the surface or just beyond the bend in the road. The seen and the unseen, our conscious and unconscious mind. Could it be that the seen and the unseen, spiritual and what we call reality is really one and the same?"
For more information on Donna Pinter's work, please see her website at
www.pinterstudios.com.
