Prartho Sereno, watercolorist/ poet, Poet Laureate of Marin County (2015-17), is author of 4 prizewinning poetry collections, including her illustrated gift book Causing a Stir: The Secret Lives & Loves of Kitchen Utensils (2007 IPPY). Her watercolors have been featured on various book & CD covers, including anthologies, journals, and her own creations.
This current show grew out of an Inspirational Pandemic Round Robin, where artists invited friends to post one painting each day for 21 days. Prartho’s response to the challenge was to pair one of her poems with each of the 21 paintings she posted. The result was something like a new art form: an intimate conversation between colors and words, each form deepening the other.
Artist Reception with Prartho Sereno
Thursday, January 13 from 5-6 p.m. Register Now
This virtual event will feature a conversation with the artist discussing several pieces, followed by a Q&A session. Registration required; register via Eventbrite. This event is free; donations are encouraged. To donate, please visit our donation page here and mention this event by name in the comments section.
Purchasing artwork –
To purchase Prartho’s art, you can contact her at prarthomsereno@gmail.com or check out her website at https://www.prarthosereno.com/ . portion of the proceeds goes to support the Dance Palace.
Poems & Paint… in Conversation
Water gets away from you. It has its own song to sing, and so the watercolor painter becomes, first of all, a listener. Water has its own persistent, rock-melting ways, as the Taoists call it: the Watercourse Way. And so the watercolorist must allow the water in her body to run together with the water on her brush. And if she gets out of the way, she is amazed at how easily the paint pours itself into every form: not only seashores and puddles, not only leaves and faces, but silverware and galaxies.
I paint to let go of my predictable world, to see what is hidden beneath. Most of my paintings are metaphoric; they blend two worlds – the ordinary with the mystical. If I meditate on any simple image, other forms inevitably arise: An Indian beggar sprouts wings, stars break out inside a glass pitcher of syrup, an old redwood tree grows the gnarled hands of an old woman, a face arises in the soup spoon.
It is wonder that I am after. Rather than happiness, my life is a pursuit of the lost continent of awe. With my brush as an oar, painting takes me there… and I hope it takes the viewer there too.
