Recent Solo Exhibits [Hopkinsville Community College] [Customs House Museum] [Downtown Artists Cooperative]

Connie is an adjunct professor at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tennessee, and at Murray State University in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. She maintains a consultation and private practice and is the founder and director of the "Rainbow Arts Center". Recently, she has become a certified workshop facilitator for "48 Days to the Work You Love" and "48 Days to Creative Income", created by Dan Miller.  She is a member of the Downtown Artist's Cooperative in Clarksville, Tennessee, and president of the Tennessee Art Therapy Association.   She was also director of the Art Therapy Internship Program at Mt. Mary College in Milwaukee, taught art at Sauk Valley College in Dixon, Illinois and art therapy at Oasis Center in Chicago. She has presented many seminars and workshops nationally on art and expressive therapy and is the author of Functional Art Therapy for the Severely Handicapped, and Forming the Pearl: A Creative Receptive Process Model of Expressive Therapy. She is listed in the Chicago Art Review and has had her artwork and an article published in Working With Images: The Art of Art Therapists.

Connie is a board certified art therapist and is certified as an expressive therapist and hypnotherapist. She received her doctorate in expressive therapy from the National Institute of Expressive Therapy in Honolulu, Hawaii, her Master of Arts and Bachelor of Arts Degrees from Northern Illinois University in Dekalb, and her Associate of Arts Degree from Sauk Valley College in Dixon, IL.  She has worked as an art and expressive therapist for over 35 years in a variety of settings and has facilitated workshops and presented nationally on expressive arts and art therapy.  

Art Philosophy

Connie's passion for painting exotic landscapes and flowers in oils began during her residence in Hawaii in 1960 and was influenced by oriental art as well as the impressionists and post-impressionists. As an art therapist, the influences of the expressionists became prominent in the late 1970's when she also began painting in watercolor. The rainbow and other feminine symbols of heightened awareness are found in these works. During this period she was greatly influenced by Prendergast, Gauguin, Mattise and O'Keeffe.

When Connie permanently injured her right arm in 1984, she began painting with her left hand, which resulted in a looser, more abstract style of aerial views of landscapes and cityscapes. Her watercolors contained mystical symbols with vibrant colors and sensations in tropical scenes, which have been influenced by the philosophy of Kandinsky and other visionary artists. In 1988 she was one of 107 artists who were invited to submit slides for a $30,000 commission at the Illinois State Capitol Building.

In 1990, Connie moved from Illinois to Tennessee and took an intermission in her art career, although she continued to paint. Currently her oils are subtle visions developed from layers of colors and superimposed dots that portray the aura and spirit of the "dreamscape" scenes. She has also continued painting aerial views and flowers in both oils and watercolors. Her watercolors have become more abstract and sometimes include colored pencils.

Recently, Connie has begun creating digital collages and paintings using layering and other computer graphics techniques. She has been asked to be a consultant for a book on using pictures in meditation and will have some of her computer graphics included in the book.

RECENT SOLO SHOWS:

2006               Downtown Artists Cooperative, Clarksville , TN , “Portals in Dreaming”

2006               Hopkinsville Community College , Hopkinsville , KY , “Fractal Metaphors”

2004-05         Customs House Museum , Clarksville , TN , with platinum photographs by Robert Musguerd, “From the Heart”

2003               Downtown Artists Cooperative, Clarksville , TN

SELECTED AWARDS:

2007               Caladan Gallery, Award, Solo Exhibition

2007               Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest, Honorable Mention

2006, 2007    Upstream People Gallery, Special Recognition Awards

2004               Ultra Fractal, Fractal Painting selected as one of “Top Five Fractals of February”  

RECENT JURIED SHOWS:

2007               Caladan Gallery, Pure Color

2007               Upstream People Gallery , 9^th Annual Abstraction International

2007               Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest, Honorable Mention

2007               Upstream People Gallery, 9^th Annual Collage & Mixed Media Art

                        International Juried Online Exhibition

2007               Caladan Gallery, Darkness: World and Culture

2007               Caladan Gallery, Cosmic Influence

2006               Upstream People Gallery, 8^th Annual Collage & Mixed Media Art International Juried Online Exhibition

2006               Customs House Museum Arts and Craft Exhibition

2006               MOCA, “The Donnie 2006 Show”

SELECTED GROUP SHOWS:

2002-2006     Downtown Artist Cooperative, Clarksville , TN

2002-2003     ABD18, California State University , Long Beach

1998               Tennessee Art League, Nashville

1994               Blue Sky Court , Nashville , TN

1991               ARC Gallery, Chicago , IL                        

Paintings and Artist’s Statement in:                                                                                        

Working With Images: The Art of Art Therapists and Chicago Art Review

PERMANENT COLLECTIONS:

McNichols’ Clinic, Dixon , IL

Merseyside County Museum , Liverpool , England

Rape and Sexual Abuse Center , Nashville , TN

Sauk Valley Community College , Dixon , IL

Trans Financial Bank of Tennessee , Memphis

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email Connie at: connie@rainbowartscenter.com  

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All graphics and web content are copyrighted by Connie Livingston-Dunn and Rainbow Arts Center, 2003-2008