Flourishing in the Meadow of Life

My work is rooted in a lifelong engagement with landscape, shaped by decades of sustained observation within the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. 

Since graduating in 1974, I have painted continuously, allowing geography, water systems, and lived experience to inform a visual language grounded in movement, material sensitivity, and physical presence. 

Trained in printmaking and painting, my early focus on drawing, texture, and layered surfaces evolved through years of working across Appalachian regions, where water emerged as a central structural and emotional element. Later, living and working between inland waterways and the Chesapeake Bay profoundly shaped my sense of scale and composition. 

Residencies in France and Italy expanded my understanding of landscape as a dynamic system, marked by the tension between organic and built forms and by the unseen influence of underground water. 

Today, I create life-size paintings from direct physical engagement with the land, using palette knives, willow branches, impasto, and charcoal. Drawing and painting converge to register movement, rhythm, and the ongoing processes of erosion and renewal. 

"Revealing a sophisticated understanding of rhythm, Dorothy Fagan orchestrates a chromatic intensity with balance and sensitivity, allowing bold hues to coexist with softer transitions in a way that feels intentional and deeply intuitive." ~ Ainhoa Fernández, curator Madrid, Spain