Connie Tunick
Creative & Commercial
By Gordon Durich, Photo courtesy of Frame.Thirty.Six
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Working from an eclectic studio in Newbury Park, Connie Tunick merges creativity and commerce with a prolific stable of work that can be seen locally and globally. “It’s really rewarding,” said Tunick of her work as an artist.
Tunick creations can be seen on the local front at venues as diverse as Los Robles Medical Center in Thousand Oaks, to retail stores such as Cost Plus and Target. “I went into a store the other day and saw one of my posters,” she said surprised. “My son in Seattle said he saw one of my posters - in an elevator of all places!”
Themes of Tunick’s work range from multicolored floral designs to monotone urban architectural and high tech images of gritty cities like Chicago and New York. “My work always has a lot of layers.” Tunick creations include her biggest and favorite commission for the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York City as well as “Symbols of Life,” an intricate mixed media work with images of angels and hearts. Others are more simple and bold. "I combine painting with printmaking," she explains. "I often use my press to begin a piece. Then I might paint back in by hand (as opposed to painting on the press), and I often add collage materials. Then I might cover that up and continue. The process is an important part of my work. Using various materials and mediums allows me to mix it up and change my way of doing things. It is the layering that makes painting fun. My paintings are not done in one quick session. I like to play and go over the work, adding and subtracting; changing. I try to change my way of working because it is important that I keep fresh.”
In addition to her work as an artist, Connie Tunick is a member of Women Painters of the West and serves on the executive board of the Arts Council of the Conejo Valley, where she is a co-curator of the Galleria, at the Hillcrest Center for the Arts in Thousand Oaks. “It’s stimulating to be in good groups with other artists and see what they’re doing.”
According to this artist, a bored artist is a boring artist. “When looking at a piece of art, if it looks like something you might have seen over and over, it probably was done by a bored and boring artist.”
Rest assured that Tunick is no boring artist. Tunick is sometimes so driven, she can not stop herself from working. “And sometimes it is important to not work, but to think and listen, go to museums and shows, and just absorb new information," she concludes.
Her goal is to have a conversation with the viewer and to communicate what is behind the art.
See more of Connie Tunick's work at www.connietunick.com
