Having studied the violin growing up, Callaghan retains a strong sense of relativism when it comes to incorporating concepts such as a sense of time, sensory experiences, and even volume into her paintings.  She notes, “I’ve been working with more muted tones in this body of work. I’m thinking about enhancing color by toning it down. It’s like lowering the volume in the car when it starts pouring rain so you can see better.” And while every detail of a painting matters and can be analyzed for its contribution to the greater whole, there is no idealized point of completion or end goal in Callaghan’s work. As she explains, ”...that’s really what it’s about: getting someplace I haven’t been before, arriving somewhere new.”

Callaghan looks to the works and wisdom of artists and instructors she has encountered through her years of practice and teaching, noting the poetic and often contradictory ways that artists talk about painting. Her late professor, Frank Bramblett, opined, “...what matters most is what we don’t know.” In the studio, the unknown draws Callaghan into new ways of handling paint and working with color relationships. The journey is filled with discovery, surprise and deliberate reflection leading to an open-ended moment of what she asserts as, “...arriving at a place that feels right.” For viewers of Callaghan's work, the unknown provides curiosity, delight, and an opportunity for slow observation and contemplation. The longer one looks, the more there is to behold in these beautiful paintings.

Image Right: Sleepy Sun, 14″ x 11″, Oil On Canvas