From New Orleans to Boston to the Rogue Valley, art has found Marigny Goodyear everywhere she goes.

Throughout August, Goodyear is featuring her abstract art, titled “Naturals,” that began with an opening reception earlier this month. Her work has been showcased at Ashland Design Studio and in Bend at Legum Design. From New Orleans, she’s been in the Rogue Valley for nine years.

“I have made art for as long as I can remember,” she says. “It was a huge part of my childhood and adolescence where I was a fixture in my high school art room. I went to Boston University School for the Arts for only one and a half years but I found the very classical program quite stifling and ultimately left BU with a business degree. After college, I didn’t sit down to paint, draw, or sculpt for many years, but I went back to New Orleans where I got deep into the costume scene and would make crowns and costume pieces and do elaborate face painting for different fetes.”

Throughout her career she’s pulled inspiration from her hometown, which she calls “one of the most colorful places in the world. I think, having grown up in NOLA, music and rhythm run through my veins. This Fall I’ll be concentrating on a Louisiana series that takes much imagery from my childhood. From pelicans and fishing hooks to snow balls and umbrellas.”

Her abstract style stems mostly in repetitive imagery or patterns. Her use of texture and color lights up each painting. Her piece “Pelicans,” for example, offers a white and deep sea green contrast with pelicans, large and small, placed all over the piece. “Cherry Blossoms” finds patterns in the petals seemingly falling down the paintings, with straight, thick lines vertically reaching down the piece.

“I like to explore repeating patterns and shapes as a foundation for the practice of abstract expressionism. I love utilizing contrasts in color, texture, size and emotion. As I dive deeper and deeper into my work, I’m finding a whimsy returning (I used to want to be a children’s book illustrator) and I’m excited to explore that playfulness in my Louisiana series.”

The different mediums found in Goodyear’s abstract work are not only evident in each piece, but also gives her a defining, pattern-like style in a style usually devoid of pattern or repetition.

“Naturals” at Bestow and Bloom

Through August

149 N Pioneer St, Ashland