Gallery Talk: Pamela Dorris DeJong

Artist Talk in the MAC Galleries
with exhibiting artist Pamela Dorris DeJong

Saturday, October 24 at 11:00am
FREE and Open to the Public

Color, Form, and Place: Pamela Dorris DeJong & Sky Hoyt
Exhibition Dates: September 26 – October 30, 2026

Join us for an informal gallery talk with artist Pamela Dorris DeJong. Read more about our current show HERE.

Pamela Dorris DeJong is a mixed-media artist whose work brings together healing, environmental awareness, and the luminous qualities of layered painting. Drawing on her background in pediatric nursing, art education, Reiki, and years of plein air and mixed media practice, she creates work that invites viewers to notice beauty, consider new perspectives, and reflect on the relationship between art, healing, and the natural world. Through mixed media, Pamela explores healing, environmental concerns, and the act of recording this moment in time.

Artmaking and healing have long been intertwined in Pamela’s life. A graduate of the Fall River Diploma School of Nursing and Northeastern University’s Pediatric Nurse Practitioner Program, she has maintained a dual career shaped by experience as a nurse practitioner, elementary and middle school art teacher, school nurse, mother of three, grandmother of seven, and second-degree Reiki healer. These roles give her a deep well of insight into healing, art, and life.

Pamela developed proficiency across painting media through studies at the Rita Guzzi Studio in West Newton, Lois Griffel’s Painting the Impressionist Landscape program at the Cape Cod School of Art, numerous workshops, and International Encaustic Conferences. Over time, she became drawn to translucent, layered surfaces, and atmospheric conditions that create wavering, vibrant color. Years of plein air painting and travel deepened her connection to land and waterscapes, while experimentation with encaustic and other media led her toward luminous work embedded with found objects, and metals. She brings healing energy to images she creates of beautiful gardens and shorelines.

Artscope Magazine has described Pamel’s work as “not stopping merely at transforming materials” but as exploring “the healing properties in physical, psychological, and relational concepts through the process of artmaking” noting that its “intricately layered, powerful colors and engaging texture” communicate on many levels.

Pamela’s work has appeared in numerous national and international exhibitions. She is a member and former president of the New England Wax Association, a member of the International Encaustic Association, and a member of ArtsWorcester.

Artist Statement

Inspired by County Clare, Ireland, the beaches and gardens of Falmouth, and neighborhood gardens of Ashland, Massachusetts, these paintings draw from landscapes that feel both specific and universal. Each setting offers a different kind of refuge: the rugged beauty and ancestral pull of the Irish coast, the expansiveness of the shoreline, and the intimate rhythms of cultivated gardens close to home. Through color, gesture, pattern, and layered imagery, I translate these environments into visual spaces for comfort and reflection. They represent the enduring human need to return to sources of grounding. Moving between abstraction and representation, I invite viewers to pause, notice, and remember the subtle moments that help us endure and reconnect.

Using varied media to accomplish the image I see in my imagination or memory, I choose between the luminous qualities of encaustic, the bright colors of acrylic, the textures of cold wax, or the satiny surfaces of oil. The concept comes to mind first and I plan, draw, and research a few ideas. Then I paint my thoughts. My feelings show unconsciously in the colors I choose, the formation of the design, and the choice of places I have felt serenity.

GALLERY HOURS
Tuesday-Friday: 1:00 pm-5:00pm
Sat: 10:00am-2:00pm
Sunday-Monday: CLOSED

Office Hours
Tuesday-Friday 10:00am-5:00pm

The MAC Galleries are open to the public and always FREE.