Ed: A Very American Artist

“Ed: A Very American Artist” was the first painting in the Dana Series.  Although “Ed” was painted in a fairly traditional style, Nancy began surrounding the figure with symbolic – sometimes abstract objects each with its own meaning.  Nancy’s paintings became more surrealistic.  Later in the series, she transformed symbolic objects to symbolic figures, which were painted entirely from memory.  In this way, the artist could remain true to her mind’s original concepts and expressions, without imposing a model’s personality into the composition.