Antonia Walker
Antonia Walker has become known for her paintings of the light and color of the Virginia countryside as well as images of Italy and France. Antonia received a BFA from the University of Georgia, where she studied painting and printmaking and later attended graduate school at George Washington University, when she studied with William Woodward in Brittany. Earlier, while living in South America, she studied drawing and anatomy with Spanish sculptor, Benjamin Saul, at the Academia de Esculptura.
Antonia has had two residencies at the American Academy in Rome. During both trips, she traveled around Italy visiting Venice, Lake Como, Tuscany and Umbria to draw and paint, and to study the art and architecture. For several years she has gone to Provence to paint the fields and perched villages of the countryside.
She has been published in many books and her works are represented in the Arts in Embassies program at the State Department, as well as many corporate and private collections throughout the United States. These include NASA, Xerox Corporation, Waterford Foundation, Journey Through Hallowed Ground National Heritage Area, National Gallery of Art and The Washington Post. Antonia travels to France and Italy frequently, teaching and painting the landscape. She currently resides in Virginia.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Through the arrangement of light, color and space in a painting, I try to interpret the beauty of the land, the water and the figure in a way that conveys mystery and emotion. Light and memory affects the landscape of the mind as well as the vanishing landscape of nature. The long shadows of afternoon light or the sparkling freshness of morning sun gives the painter a range of blues, violets, burnished golds and glowing greens that can be suggestive or poetic.
Often the fragmented light of afternoon glances off land and architecture causing a distorted reality that breaks patterns and colors into dreamlike shapes. One is drawn into the landscape as dusk darkens the rivers and farmlands. With the figure, I try to interpret gestures with light and colors that recall a state of being. Since I was a child, I have been fascinated by the differing shapes and colors at times of the day, as well as the emotional presence suggested by a face or the gesture of a person.