Artist Statement
The mountains get under your skin. People who have left the Appalachian chain often find they want to come back. They long to “see the humps,” to feel a meadow breeze, enjoy sunsets, clear streams, and delight at every step. After years of making abstract paintings, Dillard began to follow the mountains’ siren call. Living on a farm in the middle of the Alleghany Mountains, she enjoys sharing the variety and beauty of the land in Virginia that she sees every day.
In the early 1990s Dillard participated in a three-person exhibit that traveled through western Virginia. For this show, she developed large landscapes painted in sections (polyptychs). In her research of the valley she was painting, Dillard discovered that people who lived there valued the land differently – from the old timer who lived in her grandfather’s house to the college professor who moved in from out of state, bought land, and developed it to pay for his children’s education. In an effort to express this difference in perspective about land, she painted each panel with a different style to nudge our thinking about what each of us brings to the landscape.
Paintings from this series hang in hotels, hospitals, board rooms and private homes. These pieces range in size from ten by twenty inch preliminary sketches to eight by twelve feet for completed work. Several have been commissioned based on the preliminary sketches and sized to fit the space.
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