Editor's note: This is presented as part of a content partnership with InLiquid.

Timothy Walsh
Studio: Media-Aston, Delaware County
Discipline: Painting / Design
Education: BFA, University of the Arts

Flying Kite (FK): What kind of art are you currently working on?
Timothy Walsh (TW): I am currently working on a body of work that depicts the hidden conversations that course through the undercurrent of our minds, unconsciously giving form to who we are as human beings. The work is about those hidden conversations happening in the background—life-talk taking place just under the hazy surface—of our loud, cacophonous lives.

FK: Describe your methods for us:
TW: I work fast, letting my emotion and intuition drive the painting. I use atmospheric pathways created by layering and removing paint and other materials, often by using large amounts of moving water. It is through this moving water that life’s experiences are revealed—in whole or in part—guiding the viewer through the hazy journey that is the human experience of emotion and physical existence. I’m looking to reveal emotion through color, texture, light and shade.

FK: What have you been up to most recently?
TW: In addition to my painting work, I am a designer working in marketing/communications and brand development for a major not-for-profit organization with headquarters in Manhattan. One of my more recent projects there was the branding of a trauma healing initiative called She’s My Sister.

I also serve on the governing board of Save Upper Darby Arts (SUDA). SUDA is a leading advocacy organization for quality public education in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. We advocate through the political budgetary process and by enabling communities to stay involved in their local school districts.

FK: What's up next for you?
TW: I’m organizing the marketing and communications around a Benefit Art Market called DAS:BAM (David and Angie Sacks Benefit Art Market) for a close friend who has cancer. As part of the group organizing this Oct. 5 event, we see the heart David and Angie Sacks have for artists. Therefore it is fitting to support this family in their battle with cancer through an event centered on the arts. This unique show will prosper artists and help to provide for the Sacks' family medical costs and needs.

The vision is to present the better works of fine artists, and so this show is structured to compensate artists as they would from a gallery, with the added twist of a Sacks Family Medical Fund to receive the "house" proceeds. 

FK: What inspires you?
TW: This quote from Dutch-born priest and author Henri J.M. Nouwen inspires me: “In this crazy world, there’s an enormous distinction between good times and bad, between sorrow and joy. But in the eyes of God, they’re never separated. Where there is pain, there is healing. Where there is mourning, there is dancing. Where there is poverty, there is the kingdom.”

FK: Why do you make art other than out of necessity?
TW: I make art because when I make it, I understand some small part of God. It is something that I share with him. During the creative process, I understand him experientially. God creates, and I enjoy that I can share this in common with him. It is how I communicate best with the one who created me. For me, the creative process is an act of worship and communication — an act of solidarity between God and myself. I talk to him through my art. My work shows my feelings in purest form. It’s about me experiencing my God in a way that is intimately my own, but understood and familiar to many who come in contact with it.

Like the quote that inspires me, I need to create because my working is my journey of finding light in darkness, healing in pain, joy in sorrow, hope in despair and life in death. My work is about letting my creator reveal himself and allowing him to use my experience to make me stronger. Refined in the fire, made purer than ever.

FK: What do you wish people will see or get out of your work?
TW: I hope that people will see a little bit of their soul revealed when they contemplate my work. A painting is a living thing and when you spend time with it, especially contemplative time, it speaks to the deepest part of your soul. I long for people to meet the voice that meets me when I paint and I hope that by viewing the work, light will come out of darkness, healing will come from pain, joy will be found in sorrow, hope from despair and life in death.