Lois Eby:

My interests in art as in life range from the visible to the invisible, from the energy and inventiveness of jazz to the stillness of meditation. My work expresses fleeting moments of feeling, from joy to exuberant energy to deep feeling with no name.

Several strands of influence come together in my paintings. One is Asian ink painting, and Zen ink painting in particular, from which I learned to see line as expressive of feelings at the deepest and most vibrant levels of human experience. Another strand is African American improvised music; here I learned to embrace improvisation as a method of creation and a well of vital energy. The exploration of abstraction in Western art since Kandinsky has also provided challenge and direction. Tapping into these varied traditions, I bring the utmost attention to the moment when I paint.

Since childhood I have had a driving interest in the mysteries and meanings of nature and human life. Though my works are abstract, I see them as twenty-first century nature paintings in the sense of what we know or theorize today about underlying reality. For example, string theory posits vibrating elements of energy which join together to create forms, then part, then join. This is vibrant energy and ongoing change at our personal and universal core.

When I paint, I pursue energy, a rhythmic vitality that moves through space and into and out of forms. I love these elements: line, color, space, energy, improvisation. I hope my paintings convey this love.