MERVYN SELDON ART

Mervyn Seldon, a Chicago native, began painting in the mid-1980's after a career in nonprofit administration, book publishing, and educational fund-raising in New York and California. After majoring in French literature and art history in college, she earned an M.A. in political science and the certificate of Columbia University's East Asian Institute (specializing in China), and an M.F.A. in drawing and painting from California State University, Fullerton. She has shown widely in California and in other states as well and serves as treasurer of an artists' gallery in Pomona.

Her work encompasses still lifes, landscapes, portraits, and abstract paintings. In the 1990's, a central theme of her still lifes was the continuing presence in our lives of those who have passed on, while landscapes resonate with an awareness of people's impact on nature. She has not only painted portraits of friends but sought to suggest personality through studies of the settings in which they chose to live.

In recent years, she has moved toward abstraction as a means of expressing emotion. An early preference for hard-edged abstraction has given way to more lyrical perceptions in which sweeping curves contrast with geometric shapes. Characterizing her work since 1985 is a joy in the use of color, careful composition, and an interest in light and texture.