Audrey Kay Dowling in the Patterson Library Octagon Gallery

A Retrospective: A Rural Artist's Journey. Audrey Kay Dowling
Keeping Artistically Sophisticated While Living the Mellow Life in the Country
Audrey Kay Dowling is complex, creative, and searching in her artwork. New materials, exploring new places, looking carefully at things to find nuances of color, textures, unusual combinations visually, including the endless visual variation of dance created by water as it moves and flows excites her. She works in many mediums, but focus on mixed media block printing, abstract painting and one-of-a-kind clay work.
Audrey has spent the last 45 years running Portage Hill Art Gallery, which features her work and the work of several other regional artists. After completing a 30-year teaching career specializing in Art and Gifted Education, she is now able to fully devote my career to full time artist and gallery owner. Audrey has chosen lived in the country of western New York State near where she was raised, after getting an early taste of city life in NYC. While loving the vibrance of the city, she chose the mellow of the country where she can just walk out her back door and have thousands of acres of woods and a gorge to explore and use as a source of inspiration. She also owns a cottage on Lake Erie where eagles, sunsets and small woods take her breath away daily during the summer months.
Reading famous artist's biographies, exploring art museums on extensive travels, keeping up with the art scene through the internet and establishing regional artist connections have also informed her art life choices. This how she stays in touch with the larger international art world. After graduating with a degree in Art Education from State University of New York at New Paltz , she has been an active artist, teacher and gallery owner. In addition to being an avid gardener, she works full time as an artist and gallerist. Her work can be seen at Portage Hill Art Gallery and on-line at www.portagehillgallery.com. Her work is frequently represented in many regional, national and international juried shows and found in many private collections.