About the Artist

Peggy Starks takes out her camera and unleashes her imagination. Vibrant colors spill out the beam from a lighthouse, glass bottles take on intense dimension, and reflections on the water become jewels of light and form. Her joyful curiosity and creativity have created a body of work that adds a new twist to black and white photography, reflections, figures, traditional landscapes, and virtually everything she sees.

Photography, silkscreen prints, pen and ink and abstract paintings all express her well developed eye, but it is photography that has provided Peggy with the artistic freedom she worried would be taken away when she was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in 1972. "When I focused on Photography (no pun intended) my world was expanded. Physically I can't climb a mountain, but through the lens of my camera I can! What a wonderful freedom photo art has provided me. I hope you feel my joy as you view my images."

Peggy and her husband lived aboard the 32-foot schooner he built. While sailing up and down the west coast of Florida Peggy*s eye for Florida landscape developed through her photography but it was after a trip to Alaska in 2000 that Peggy came home and made changes to enable her to do her own art full time. *Alaska had an amazing effect on me. There is such beauty and I felt such peace that I wanted to share that feeling with others.

Experimentation with multiple mediums allowed Peggy to find what her body would allow her to do 21st century techniques combining camera and computer art are featured in her updated portfolio. Luckily, computer technology is not limited by MS. Peggy calls all work that has been digitally enhanced through computer manipulation "Photo Art".

Peggy has won numerous awards in both juried and non-juried shows and collectors and art lovers around SW Florida are seeking after her work. She is an inspiration to many and finds inspiration in all. Peggy says, "as we see the world so the world will see us. Let us see the beauty in which we live!"

I have been shooting pictures of the beauty of the earth for at least 50 of my 55 yrs. I hope my children’s children will see the same but I fear that life as we know it is changing faster than I’d like. I want the world to stay as I’ve seen it and through my photo art it can – the view never changes while looking at photographic images and yet it always changes because we change. So as I pass my view on to your eyes, I hope you’ll find the joy I experienced while creating it. I use a digital camera to take the original image and use various techniques to enhance the image so as to show you – the viewer – what I saw while shooting it. The feelings I had while taking the picture, the environment surrounding me and the scene as well as what is happening in me and through me is what makes each shot unique. And finally the creative tools I use to give it it’s separateness from other versions of my images is what makes this piece of art your own piece of the world’s beauty.