Donna Usher received her BFA in painting and BS in art education from Moore College of Art & Design. She received her MFA with Honors from the University of Delaware. Ms. Usher was an Associate Professor of Art for 25 years at West Chester University; in 2021 Ms. Usher was awarded the Honors College Emerita Designation by the West Chester University Council of Trustees. In addition, in 1999 Professor Usher received the Faculty Merit Award for Creative Endeavors and Collaboration with Students.
Ms. Usher's artworks have been exhibited in over 70 national and international juried and invitational exhibitions. Her artworks are in the Permanent Collections of the National Centre of Fine Arts, Cairo, Egypt; The Museum of Cozumel, Mexico; Reading Public Museum; Verizon Corporate Offices; Franklin Mint, Hercules Chemical Corporation; West Chester University; Moore College of Art & Design; Regional Center for Women in the Arts; Downingtown Public Library; American Restaurant Association Corporate Offices, and numerous private collections.
"Like such great composers as Beethoven and Mozart, Usher gives voice to a mystical sense of both spiritual and emotional elevation. In a bright vocabulary of unexpected pattern and intense color, her forms articulate a rare state of infinite transcendence. Instead of offering snap-shots describing obvious material objects seen in the ordinary, everyday world she brings a universe of pure invention and balanced order into being. The paintings she puts together add up to a reality with an inspired esthetic life of its own."
Dr. Burt Wasserman
Art Critic for ICON magazine
"Meditations, the series of recent paintings by Donna Usher, defines a multi-layered works of infinite dimensions. The viewer from this organic planet journeys through an atmosphere filled with colorful forms in constant cyclical motion towards an endless universe. Nothing is static yet everything is held together, conforming to an ancient mantra. Each painting is an invitation to contemplation; a unique experience in confrontation with other, more vociferous, works of art." Anne R. Fabbri
Art Critic
"Usher's abstract paintings typically feature multiple layers of densely patterned spheres with seemingly endless variations in color, size, and texture. The extreme detailed often obsessive nature of her work is mesmerizing especially in the multi-layered paintings where overlapping circular forms appear to infinitely recede. There is a sense that you are peering into a cosmic universe-a world without dimensions." Leah Douglas
Director of Exhibitions
Philadelphia International Airport
Donna Usher's August 13, 2011 Commencement Speech for the Inaugural Graduation of Moore College of Art and Design's graduating MFA in Studio Arts and MA in Art Education with a Focus on Special Populations students.
dusher@wcupa.edu
Click here to view résumé (PDF)
|
