Phyliss Hammerstrom Wright

CV and Artist Statement

In Akron, she completed a three-year atelier course with Jack Richards; studied pastels with Judi Carducci; and oil and acrylic painting with Mark Giangaspero and Susan Mencinni. Her beginning in art was shaped by studying painting and art history with Vlado Sunarich, a Yugoslavian painter working in the Milwaukee area. She also studied with Ali Hammad, a Lahore trained, UAE based artist/teacher, whose portraiture is in space!

She works chiefly in acrylics and sometimes in Pastel. Landscape is her chief interest as she is an outdoors person who loves capturing the complexity of the natural, created world. Her undergraduate degree is in Middle Eastern History and Theology. So, there is a kind of theological perspective behind her work. Although her paintings often echo the work of the Impressionists, she is also influenced by colorists. She has been moving toward a simplification, even abstraction of the world she is seeing.

Newly retired from teaching Business Ethics and Philosophy at Lake Eric College and running not-for-profit organizations, she married a Canadian, and is settled into life in Port Hope, she is thrilled to be exploring this new land with her husband who is photographer and author Eric Wright.

Before she left America, she had a one-man show, “Adventure in Landscape” at the Akron Women’s Club, sponsored by the Women’s Art League. Her previous one-man show was at the Hudson Library and Historical Society, before she left to live overseas for a decade in Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates. Muslim Art is another area of interest for her.