Artist Spotlight: Victoria Woshner

Eastport Gallery member Victoria Woshner is known for her stunning and meticulously detailed paintings as well as her bold and experimental sculptural pieces. Sometimes she even creates with fire! Using a method called pyrography, (writing with fire), Victoria draws exacting, nature-inspired images.

The precision in her work is no accident. It comes from a life of careful observation,

particularly of nature’s rhythms and patterns. In an unusual path to becoming a painter,

Victoria has an extensive science background. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Biology,

a Master’s Degree in Wildlife Ecology and a PhD in Veterinary Toxicology. Although she

enjoyed making art as a child, doing things like creating greeting cards and pressing

flowers, she never considered it to be something you could do as a career. Her interest

in the natural world led her elsewhere.

Victoria’s studies ranged from studying bobcats in Mississippi to several marine mammal species (including bowhead and beluga whales) in Alaska. She especially

appreciated the wild landscape and career opportunities in Alaska but eventually,

because of family, she relocated to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. While Pittsburgh doesn’t

present much opportunity to research wildlife, Victoria ended up with a unique

opportunity to reacquaint herself with art ...  just for fun. In an effort to learn more about the tools, materials and processes of making art, she began taking studio courses at the University of Pittsburgh. At some point an instructor noted that she almost had enough classes under her belt to get a degree. Although this wasn’t her original intent, she rounded up the necessary classes and polished off another degree … this time in Art.

While searching for a place “colder than Pennsylvania” as she embarked on her next

chapter of life after Pittsburgh, it was Downeast Maine, with its rural beauty like Alaska’s (that state being located too far away from family), that warmed her heart. She moved to Lubec in 2023, joined Eastport Gallery in the following year and when not exploring her new environs has been busy fixing up her new home.

When asked how her science research contributes to her work as an artist Victoria

explains how it is a matter of looking and seeing. It wasn’t the modeling and math of

science that brought her joy, it was more the aesthetic aspects, from microscopic

universes to giant ecological webs. She notes the subtle variations in nature and

captures the details and structures and incredible patterns that occur in the natural

world.  She says, “I always observe or see the ecological relationships in terms of what

I’m doing even if it doesn’t end up on the canvas.”

In one series of detailed drawings, she chose to look closely at and honor birds that had died due to accidents. Victoria describes how the birds “had evolved perfectly for their niche but in the built world so many can’t deal with the intersection,” explaining that there are environmental issues continually impacting the natural world.

As she explores the trails around her new home Victoria collects feathers, artifacts and

interesting pieces of wood in various stages of decay. These are often incorporated into her work. Her artwork includes a skull covered in an intricate pattern of beading, wood pieces, carved first by insects, then shaped into wonderful monolithic columns, as well as large scale paintings detailing the delicate structures of plants such as a Bunchberry or a Globe Mallow. See more of Victoria’s work at https://www.eastportgallery.com/victoria-woshner