Philadelphia artist Constance Culpepper is a painter and paper collagist who creates stylized pattern-filled compositions that combine natural elements with symbols of domesticity. Her artwork features familiar objects—a house and chair with magical floating flowers—an amalgam of reimagined memories.
Culpepper states that her artwork is “about personal connection—to each other, to the space round us, and to the things within it. I use color to represent life and emotion, and to create make-believe places. These places are dream-like worlds filled with pattern, shape, and semi-recognizable objects derived from things I’ve experienced or read about.”
It's also important to Culpepper to create visual narratives that are inviting and welcoming. While working on this artwork, she thought of the poem, as she remembered it, “Over the river and through the woods to grandmother’s house we go.” Culpepper researched the original work and discovered it was written in 1844 by Lydia Maria Child, an American writer, abolitionist, and an activist for Native American and women’s rights. It was a feel-good Thanksgiving Day poem turned into a modern-day holiday song.
Culpepper honors Lydia Maria Child and writes, “My painting is a place where everyone is welcome. Explore, smell the peonies, drink a cup of tea, feel the grass between your toes, look up at the clouds in the sky, take a seat. Maybe here, you can discover something or someone anew.”