"Cacti are weird. Their shapes and textures are peculiar. They intrigue me. I am challenged to make art out of their oddity."

"I started painting representational images of cactus but their very strangeness took me away from the actual forms and into abstraction. Initially, I worked with a wide range of mediums on paper. Why not? Watercolors, acrylics, gauche, charcoal sticks, chalks, inks, whatever was handy. How about trying them, not just on paper? Let’s take a shot at using them on Yupo."

"Unexpectedly, that freedom and the strange awkward grace of the cacti led me back to oils . . . which only prodded me further into abstraction. Who knows where from there? I don’t feel as if I am ‘done’ with this series or the techniques I am developing. Just as a cactus spikes new growth and blossoms from strange places, I am experiencing new growth from . . . . I don’t know where."

Jill Kneeter