Dangerous Beauty. Li Newton, artist
By Gina Malone
Throughout Li Newton’s journey with art, she has not only found her style as an artist who “paints with paper” but she has learned to trust her instincts and intuition in the way she lives as well as in the way she creates. Her self-actualization involved learning new skills but also coming to terms with both discouragement from an art instructor during her college years and, more significantly, abuse that happened in her childhood.
Newton grew up traveling around the US and Germany as the youngest child in an Air Force family. “Moving often was rough, without a home base and frequently being the new kid in school,” she says. “It was also magical spending time wandering through European and American museums and historical sites, listening to world music and devouring books about classical painting and artists.”
Dreamtime. Li Newton, artist
She left the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts broken-spirited after an art teacher questioned her talent and presence in the class. “I dropped out and went forward aimlessly trying to figure out if I was good at anything,” she says. In her mid-twenties, she applied to Otis-Parsons [now Otis College of Art and Design], in Los Angeles, and was admitted as a second-year student. “I still felt so overwhelmed and underqualified compared to the other students that I quit again,” she says. “An unfortunate pattern I did not understand until years later when I started delving into past sexual trauma with some gut-wrenching, lifesaving therapy.”
Through the years, she found many healing encounters, including with the outdoors. “I moved to the Sierra Nevada mountains, with the help of my sister, and became entrenched in backcountry living—working my body until exhausted, learning high-altitude cooking, telemark skiing and mountain skills,” she says.
Victory Lap. Li Newton, artist
During this time, she also discovered silk painting after a silk painter came to the lodge during a snowstorm and taught the crew the basics. “I was hooked and my artist brain woke up again,” Newton says. “Learning to live without many modern conveniences, and relearning self-reliance and survival skills also taught me to trust my instincts and intuition. While high-altitude cooking for White Mountain Research Center, I eventually found the right partner and his unwavering support of my artistic abilities encouraged me to explore without fear of failure.”
She sold her silk paintings in art markets for 15 years, while also exploring acrylics, soft pastels, mosaics, carving and printmaking. “My colors and subjects in traditional mediums, excluding silks, were quiet and muted, introspective,” she says.
A move to a remote island research center in the Bahamas brought further blossoming of her true self. “I lived in the water daily, discovering the magical universe of ocean life,” says Newton. “It was like being born again, every day coming home excited to share what I’d seen and experienced. Living there flipped a switch in my art in such a profound way, like every cell was awake. The colors exploded on my palette; curious creatures began to fill my canvases. Joy, curiosity and even humor started appearing in my work. All of my current work reflects my relationship with the natural world, wildlife and my own place in it. I often am inspired by the thousands of photos I’ve taken, many underwater.”
Fox of Autumn Glen. Li Newton, artist
In 2014, Asheville’s art scene called and she relocated. She continued to work other jobs and paint on the side until she joined Trackside Studios in 2022. “I quit all my ‘real’ jobs and started working as a full-time, self-supporting artist,” she says. “Yippee!”
Her recent work has centered around collage, a medium she discovered while stuck at home during COVID without the materials she needed for painting. What she did have were stacks of books, maps and old calendars. “I started covering up my ‘bad’ paintings with stuff around my studio,” she says. She decided they looked like mosaics without the pain of having to cut glass.
“There is an intimacy to tearing out paper and watching a portrait or scene come to life as I build up layers,” Newton says. “My latest large-scale paper collages feature thousands of individually hand-cut pieces. The addition of other materials coalesce into a rich, textured surface density and luminous, atmospheric layers of color and light. I am captivated by creating beauty from objects forgotten or in decay.” She starts with a general idea, maybe a loose pastel line drawing, then lets the papers show her the way. Each piece is finished with layers of gel medium and an acrylic varnish.
“Li is a shining gem at Trackside Studios,” says fellow artist and Trackside manager Julie Ann Bell. “She creates on site several days a week so visitors can watch her process, as she turns scraps of paper into a stunning completed work.”
Nestled in Moonlight. Li Newton, artist
Newton has a favorite among the collages she has created. “One day during all that crazy survivor therapy, I was riding my bike through the desert with my blue heeler, Max,” she says. “Suddenly, all the work clicked; it wasn’t my fault, no one especially a child asks to be abused. I started screaming and ugly crying. The next day my life changed and I started getting better by the day. Years later, while collaging, I found an old magazine ad about a housewife being a warrior in the kitchen, wearing an 1800s war helmet. From this image, a collage happened so organically I was barely involved. It was me riding, standing on the bike pedals as a helmet head warrior with butterfly wings coming out of my back, arms and legs, rising up proudly. Metamorphosed into my true self. Blooming.”
Li Newton Fine Arts is located at Trackside Studios, 375 Depot Street, in the River Arts District, and at Village Artist Market, 32 All Souls Crescent, in Biltmore Village. Learn more at LiNewtonFineArts.com and follow on Instagram and Facebook @li.newton.
