May 2017: Dayna J. Collins

Dayna J Collins is an abstract painter who loves working with color and texture. Drawing upon the flexibility of working with oil paint mixed with cold wax medium, she is able to create layers of color using palette and putty knives to apply, push, pull, and scrape the layers of paint to reveal and explore the rich complexity of water, land, and sky. Dayna's fascination with waterlines began as a child. Growing up as the daughter of a river rat on the Columbia River, plus time spent at her grandparent's beach cabin on the Oregon Coast, she learned to love waterlines at an early age. In the summer of 2014, as she was floating in the Columbia River, she noticed the waterline of a boat.  Dayna was captivated by the beautiful colors and imagined it as an abstract painting. She's been painting waterlines ever since. She describes waterlines as: "Where water meets an edge. A shoreline. The hull of a ship. The sand. Riverbanks. The sky. In exploring various forms of waterlines, I am especially interested in experimenting with the intersections, where water meets the land. I ask myself: What's happening at the horizon line? Turbulence or ripples. Calmness or agitation. What's above, or, what's below."