Eileen Doman: Her Women

"Many people spend years trying to achieve a goal, through education and hard work, some succeed, some don't. I have always tried to be fulfilled and have substance and meaning in my life. At age 39 I began talking more and more about painting to friends, whom I am sure thought I was coming from left field. How could the tedium of day to day life drive someone to paint? After much thought, I bought brushes and paint and began to paint my couch, because I loved the big leafy pattern. It ended up looking nothing like the pattern, but I did finish it. But it came to me how wonderful it would be to paint a person, because the art I most admired was that of Van Gogh and Modigliani. My determination seemed to suddenly exceed my ability. I began going through old family photo albums and the sentimental value they gave me was, as always, overwhelming."

"The spiritual connection with my maternal grandmother became a big issue for me. I painted her over and over. Her inspiration was the fact that she raised 4 children alone in rural Kentucky and had little education. She worked very hard, doing ironing and whatever work she could find to put food on the table. She relied solely on her inner strength for survival. In essence she became my heroine in life, one of those forgotten people in everyday life, yet with the most difficult challenges a woman alone could face. I ask myself, why does someone like her go unrecognized? Subconsciously, I guess I set out to make her life important and the many women like her who have gone through the same thing."

"In 1993, I joined an art league in Wheaton, IL and entered a painting in a juried show. Embarrassed by my art and feeling inadequate among all the other highly trained artists, I asked a friend to enter it on my behalf. I called later to ask about "an ugly painting" and found I had won a ribbon of merit. Tears of joy filled my heart, thus it was just the beginning. Showing my work to a visiting art critic, her first comment was "we have a primitive among us", which I hadn't a clue as to what that meant. She found the paintings to be brilliant, and strongly urged me to do shows. Another revelation had come over me and fueled me to continue on. Next an art fair, sales, gallery contacts, and then the annual Outsider Art Fair in New York. The response in New York was overwhelming, and was a complete sellout. Another major gallery in New York bought five of my works and acted as if they were brought to their knees. It was all of course quite incomprehensible to me to say the least. A write-up in the New Yorker Magazine followed for my first one woman show in New York. Then television, more praise, more articles, more shows."

"It is all so grand, but my focus still remains on my art and the importance of everyday life, the pain, joy, and sorrow we all experience, that somehow seems to all pass unnoticed, but all are major influences of the human condition, which is precisely what drives me to paint. I have achieved notoriety, but my mission now is to inspire others. Self motivation is the best tool one can have, the challenge of overcoming obstacles and following one's heart and mind."

Ms. Doman's work is in the collection of the Whitney Museum in New York, and her art has been featured in national and local publications and exhibited throughout the USA. Whether the label is 'primitive', 'naive', 'folk', or 'outsider', her art is personal and thought provoking.

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