Vicki Donkersley
vickidonk@gmail.com
Biography
Vicki Donkersley had a 3 decade art career in museums before retiring in 2011. For 24 years Vicki worked as Curator of Exhibitions at Tohono Chul, her own little garden of Eden. When she left the office, she went home to Catalina State Park, where her husband served as Park Manager and where they lived for 35 years. Vicki lived and worked at two of Tucson’s most spectacular desert gems and she still considers each place her sanctuary, teacher and spiritual advisor. She has BFA and MA degrees from the University of North Texas.
Artist Statement
My artwork is inspired by nature — its metaphors and life lessons — interwoven with my own personal observations and family stories. In my series of collages, Psalms of the Desert, I have mused on what is occurring at a biological level — the pulsating changes that we cannot see with our eyes, but are occurring nonetheless. A series of square abstractions are included in each work representing the unseen life force and cellular processes that take place day after day, season after season.
Emergence imagines the alchemy of seeds scattered, germination, and tender shoots of leaves emerging into a shower of sunshine.
In Night and Day - Ode to a Nighttime Pollinator, I imagine the force of a full moon pulling hawk moths into a dance of transferring pollen from among night-blooming flowers, with the life cycle of fruit forming in the weeks to come.
In Ocotillo Regeneration - Homage to a Desert Survivor, I celebrate the resilience of the prickly, stick-like ocotillo, a plant that appears dead for most of the year but is a survivor. It has the ability to outlast drought conditions and fend off predators with its lethal looking thorns. The halo of leaves vibrate with energy, coming and going as needed to sustain the regenerative cycle of life.