Hope Floats

Hope Floats

By: Lori McNee

Lorie McNee became interested in art and nature at a very young age. Always wanting to capture the birds around her yard, but never being successful, McNee began capturing them in another way…through art. She illustrated for Ducks Unlimited and although she studied art in college, considered herself, for the most part, a self-taught artist. McNee apprenticed with a great deal of very famous wildlife artists, which in turn helped her to broaden her artistic ability to compose still life, landscape, and plein air paintings. Most of her still life compositions, much like Hope Floats, featured things like birds and butterflies, which were inspired by what is known as the Dutch master technique. Being as in touch with nature as McNee is, it’s no wonder that her “elegant paintings” display a sense of balance between nature and man, in the hopes that they might one day peacefully coexist.

Take for example, McNee’s still life, Hope Floats. In such a composition she uses oil paint to help create her scene. The scene consists of two old, yet beautifully antiquated chests, lying delicately on a solid, sturdy table, serving as the plane in the piece. The chests differ slightly from one another, the bottom one being larger and more prominent that the top, with a subtle oriental graphic on either side of its lock which is closed tightly with an intertwining metal design just below the chest itself. However, it’s the smaller, more petit chest opened slightly with a delicate line of nine butterflies escaping and floating upward away from the once locked chest that becomes the real focal point of the painting. The content is clearly based on the idea of hope and optimism and renders a feeling of peace and tranquility in the viewer. McNee uses soft colors with light tones of browns, yellows, whites, blues, and reds, with an attention grabbing effect of chiaroscuro, which is displayed through the immense darkness shown to the left of the composition, and below the chests, as compared to the light coming from the top and right side of the chests. However, what is more evident than anything is the apparent movement of the butterflies from their once captivated state inside the clasped containments to an upward journey into light and freedom, where only hope can lead their way.

The painting seems to tell the story of a constant struggle to free oneself from the containment of the overbearing world around them, by escaping and floating away into something bigger, brighter, and more promising than darkness and gloom. It seems to be saying, “Go forth and live out your life” …“With hope anything’s possible…anything.”