“My painting has its roots, first, in experiences of nature. I grew up in the small town of Washington Grove, Maryland, playing under huge oaks and nearby tangled woods. My memory of light coming through leaves is contrasted with the open brilliance of the sky and sea on Cape Cod, where we went every summer. Wherever I’ve been, my time alone in nature has fed my visual life.
And second, by the great examples of expressionist arists. Among these I include not only twentieth centuryfigures like [Wasssily] Kandinsky, Emile Nolde and Arshile Gorky, but visionaries of the past, such as William Blake and Samuel Palmer. whether my work resembles theirs or not, I am sustained by their passion for what lies beneath the surfaces they portray.”
Nancy Haskett received her Bachelor of Arts degree in studio art from The George Washington University in 1970, and her Master of Fine Arts degree from the same institution in 1987. Over the years she has lived in a variety of places, including Santa Fe, New Mexico; Denver, Colorado; Detroit, Michigan; Lawrence, Kansas; and Kansas City, Missouri; as well as New Orleans, Louisiana. She currently teaches drawing at Montgomery College in Rockville, Maryland, and continues her twenty-five year long tenure as part of the education staff at The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. She has participated in many group shows along the way, as well as a number of solo exhibitions, the latest of which took place in conjunction with The Mousetrap Concert Series in her hometown of Washington Grove.
