ARTIST INFORMATION

Raised in the rolling Palouse hills of Washington State, Joann Doneen was trained by noted artist and teacher, Herman Keyes. This “master/student relationship” empowered her to actualize the artist’s life and to move to Philadelphia to continue her formal education at The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Thoroughly grounded in the traditional craft of figure drawing and old master techniques, Doneen’s artistic sensibility gradually evolved to non-representational imagery. During her four years at PAFA, she was awarded many prizes, among them the coveted Morris Blackburn Landscape Prize and the prestigious Thouron Prize. Doneen has appeared in group exhibitions in Florence (Exhibition of Abstract Work by Four American Women) and Venice (International Invitational), Italy.

PAINTING INFORMATION

Doneen creates textural immediacy through the use of oils, acrylics, encaustic, marble dust, and sand. Her technique is best characterized as the spontaneous manipulation and discovery of surface and materials on the traditional supports of canvas and wood. The paintings are inspired by the power, vividness and poignancy of nature. The resulting “landscapes” reflect a clarity that transcends the boundary between outer and inner environment. In sculptured paintings that range from hand held to wall size, Doneen’s intimate marks express cracked earth crust, a serene and distant crest of hill, or the wandering black sketch lines of river and wind. The artist makes use of frontal and aerial perspectives; translucency and mirrored imagery reveal the focus of horizon line that steadies, and then gives way to spatial ambiguities. 

 

AWARDS AND HONORS

2002 - Honorable Mention, Artists Equity Spring Juried Exhibition, Widener University
2001
- Bally’s Park Place Award, Noyes Museum of Art
1994 - Best of Show in Oil, Rittenhouse Fine Arts Festiva
1993 - Juror’s Choice Award, Stony Brook Gallery
1991 - Morris Blackburn Landscape Prize, The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts
1991 - Lance Roy Lauffer Memorial Prize, The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts
1990 - Thouron Prize, The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts
1987 - 90 - Scholarship Award, The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts

EDUCATION

1991 - The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Graduate, Phila. PA
1982 - Art Students League of New York, New York, NY
1978 - Fortwright college, Bachelor of Arts. Spokane, WA

Student of Artist Herman Keys.

PROFFESIONAL AFFILIATIONS

Philadelphia Tri/State Artists Equity,
Exhibition Committee Vice-Chair
, Member Board of Directors 2000-2002
Third Street Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts Fellowship, Philadelphia ,PA
Hunterdon Museum of Art, Clinton, N J
Plastic club, Philadelphia, PA