One comes to center by traveling many paths. Diverse directions have a single source. Like the ancient Zia sun symbol on New Mexico's flag—four directions leading to a circular core—or, Carl Jung's depiction of the self—a circle centered in a square—or, a Hindu womb-world mandala—its geometric, circular pattern reverberating from one to many—or, a child's sun drawing with outreaching rays, so from artist Gwendolyn Evans's creative center emanate diverse subjects and mediums. Gwendolyn speaks many art languages—drawing, pastel, watercolor, oil, mixed media—in telling the truth that guides her work: the power of light and color to redeem humanity and pictorial space. "Light and color bring hope to an otherwise frequently dark world," says Gwendolyn. "Fascinated by each medium's unique traits, I've done them all for 5 decades, discovering each one's particular potential for expressing light and color. I love the translucency and impasto of oil, the brilliant transparency and radiance of watercolor, and the pure vibrant pigment of pastel. In all my diversity, I search for one central thing: truth's light, whether cast on a sunny adobe wall, or discovered in the impressionistic colors of a nude, or found in the sometimes shadowed journey that becomes abstraction."

Born on the East coast, raised in the Mid-west, resident of North, South, East, and West, Gwendolyn Evans has called 33 different places home. Devoted to drawing from age 2, by age 14 she began doing pastel portraits. At 18, she studied figure drawing at The Art Institute of Chicago. In 1965 she received her Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree from Principia College, where she discovered the pleasure and challenges of plein air watercolor painting on two 4-month trips abroad. Most of her 50-some awards are in watercolor, a medium she has practiced proficiently since the 1960s. In the 1980s, she studied at Rhode Island School of Design where she received her Master's Degree with honors, an experience that highlighted her art career and encouraged her work in oil abstraction. Along with continually exhibiting in competitions and galleries, Gwendolyn taught painting workshops for adults as well as public and private high school art, creating Advanced Placement art courses. She received a grant to create a women's studies course which she has taught to women of all ages for 2 decades. Artist, teacher, writer, activist, spiritual practitioner, gardener, home-designer, and mother of three, Gwendolyn also found time to own and operate two art studio/galleries open to the public: one in Memphis, Tennessee in the 1980s and one in Shawnee-on-Delaware, Pennsylvania from 2000 to the present. In 1998, Gwendolyn completed a year towards a Master's Degree in Spiritual Direction at New York City's General Theological Seminary, a significant experience that widened her innate spirituality, ever an influence on her art.

Gwendolyn has painted in France, Great Britain, Italy, Switzerland, Greece, Costa Rica, the Caribbean, and in Quebec, Ontario, and Nova Scotia, Canada as well as throughout the US and has shown her work in more than 80 juried exhibitions, garnering numerous awards. Having taught classes and workshops for 40 years, Gwendolyn recently distilled the essence of her teaching in a new instructional DVD, Simplify the Process, which captures her knowledgeable, enthusiastic approach. Gwendolyn believes "to be both artist and teacher requires a unique tenacity, reflective of a woman's life: diverse, multi-faceted, fragmented yet whole, interrupted yet perseverant, inventive and re-inventive, generous, nurturing, enlightening—a non-linear journey—like that of a wandering nomad carrying her home with her."

Gwendolyn delves into every facet of art-making with quest, depth, and passion, and invites you to do the same in enjoying her diversity.