Paula Verona

My work draws on impressions, memories, and experiences shaped by travel and long-term observation and sustained contemplation. Influenced by Asian and Indian artistic and philosophical traditions, I explore themes of stillness, inner space, and the relationship between the material and the transcendent. An awareness of nature, the cosmos, and the spiritual inform my visual language. I often use architectural framing, sacred geometric forms, and subtle spatial divisions to create meditative, contained spaces. Within these structures, color, surface, and light interact to produce a sense of quiet depth and rhythmic balance. Texture and, at times, found objects are incorporated to emphasize material presence while maintaining a contemplative atmosphere. I have worked primarily with encaustic for several years. I find it a most seductive medium and I am drawn to its physical and luminous qualities. The immediacy of pigmented hot wax, combined with layering and scraping, allows me to build surfaces with depth and translucency.

Paula Verona has lived and worked in Taos, New Mexico since 1991. Prior to relocating to Taos, she exhibited extensively in galleries and museums on the East Coast and presented several solo exhibitions in New York City. Her work is represented in public and private collections in the United States and internationally. Throughout her career, Verona has received numerous awards and distinctions, including Best of Show in the Taos invitational exhibition No Boundaries, No Barriers and Best of Contemporary Painting at the Taos Fall Arts Festival. She was also selected by David Witt, former curator of the Harwood Museum of Art, as one of fourteen artists identified as “The Next Generation” of Taos artists. Most recently, she was among twenty-one artists chosen to participate in On Which It Rests, a collaborative exhibition between the Taos Abstract Artists Collective and the Couse-Sharp Historic Site, curated by Alexandra Terry, Curator of Contemporary Art at the New Mexico Museum of Art, and Davison Packard Koenig, Executive Director of the Couse-Sharp Historic Site. Verona’s work can be viewed at the Verona Studio Gallery in Taos, New Mexico, as well as at the Encaustic Art Institute Gallery and Museum in Los Cerrillos, New Mexico.

Painting (all materials)