ART SUNDAY - MARIA PACE-WYNTERS

“Every child comes with the message that God is not yet discouraged of man.” - Rabindranath Tagore

I illustrated yesterday’s blog with an image by Maria Pace-Wynters, and I decided for Art Sunday to say a little about this Canadian artist and showcase another of her beautiful works. She is well-schooled, with several qualifications in fine arts in the 1980s and 1990s. She has had several exhibitions since then and is very prolific, most of her work in mixed media and much of it quirky, winsome portraits of women and children. The artist’s website has a wealth of her art, as well as links, her resumé and lots of other goodies.

Her style is individual and her palette coruscates not only with brilliant colour (reminiscent of  Odilon Redon), but also with pastel shades (Like the pink period Picasso), whose superposition creates a rich visual texture. The waif-like faces of the children with expressive eyes contrast with the red-haired vamps of the adult women that populate her paintings and create the artist’s own mythology. The circus has inspired some painting cycles with “Circus Girl” and “Harlequins” exemplifying this.

Cats and dogs wander in and out of the compositions providing pivot points for the human figures. Bright flowers decorate the backgrounds, figure on fabrics or hang suspended from the air and provide a focal point that somehow manages to concentrate one’s attention even more on the subject.

The painting above is called “The Felted Hat” and shows Ms Pace-Wynters’ skill in depicting the innocence of childhood and her mastery of colour.