September 10 - October 9
Opening Reception September 11, 5-7pm
Featured in RCA’s Galeria Dos, Ainsworth’s colorful On the Waterfront plein-air oil paintings capture the beauty and serenity of the Texas coast. A native of Wichita Falls, Texas, now living in Rockport, the artist says although most of her paintings are traditional representations, she is very comfortable with abstract, often breaking subjects into a contemporary abstract painting.
“I am inspired by painting en plein air,” Ainsworth said. “These paintings begin as abstract shapes and can be taken in many different directions. A painting starts in the artist’s brain as an emotional response to a scene or a moment. It is the artist’s goal to have the viewer of the finished work feel an excitement and an emotion.”
Painting, creating and thinking dominate Ainsworth’s life. Ainsworth began taking art courses while attending high school in Dallas, working with other student artists at the Dallas Art Museum, including some of the most prominent Texas artists of the time. After earning her science degree with a focus on geology from the University of Oklahoma, which was unusual for women at the time, and working for an oil company in Kansas, she eventually returned to Texas and revisited an old passion — oil painting.
Since 1995, she has continued to study and practice her craft, both oil and watercolor, in places such as Wichita, Kansas, and Colorado Springs, where she was part of the art community, as well as Long Island, N.Y. where she joined the prestigious Guild Hall of East Hampton. Ainsworth is a member of the Wind Way Gallery collective in Rockport, where she displays her works.
“The world seen through June Ainsworth’s eyes is one of color, shapes, and light,” said Elena Rodriguez. “The simplified forms evoke the easy-going way of life on the Texas Coast and the reason so many people fall in love with Rockport, Texas.”
