The Artist - Marie Adam
Art has always been an integral part of my personality. Even in my earliest memories I recall having a pencil and a sketchpad in hand. My early adventures in art explored charcoal drawing, watercolours, oils, multi-media collage, wood carving, costuming, play acting and fiction writing.
Notwithstanding this broad involvement in many mediums, my first and strongest love was science. Through university studies in biology my skills at scientific drawing were honed to perfection, a circumstance that in later years would prove to be a tremendous obstacle in my pursuit of artistic expression through abstract painting.
In 1998, having left my job in the federal public service, I renewed my acquaintance with watercolours and began a 10 year association with the medium. As though in reaction to a release of internal pressure, like a geyser or an espresso maker, I surveyed nearly every subject matter recognizable to the art - portraiture, still life, florals, wildlife, botanical, architectural, Expressionism, landscape, surrealism, and pure abstract. Even then two common threads wind their way through my work of this period - the near-desperate search for stronger and stronger colour, and the manipulation of abstract shapes.
It is an odd quirk of nature that sometimes a small and by all standards insignificant event has the power to alter profoundly one's direction of life. In my case, it was the purchase of a French easel containing a sample starter set of both oil paints and acrylics. With an intrepid heart I launched into a year-long association with the joys and frustrations of painting in oils. The array of canvases that resulted were successful, but it soon became clear that a sensitivity to chemicals and extremely limited storage space for wet canvases were combining to eliminate oil paints as a viable medium for me.
Finally, I opened my first tube of acrylics in the summer of 2007 while on an extended road trip. The peculiarities of the acrylic medium were at first a mystery, but after months of experimentation and several seminal workshops, I recognized the potential of acrylics to satisfy my inner drive to paint abstracts in the boldest form possible. I am now a total convert to acrylics.
Artist's Statement
Colour, shape, language and perception are all interconnected in my work.
That an idea, feeling or emotion can be expressed as a shape and, conversely, that a shape can suggest an idea, a state of mind or an emotional state, I find immensely fascinating.
Furthermore, judging from the somewhat startled expression on the faces of first time viewers, this interconnection, though previously insensible to them, is readily perceived at a glance and apparently acknowledged and understood nearly as swiftly.
It is a universal characteristic of the human mind, it seems, when presented with a jumble of visual stimuli, to make sense of it all by instantaneously conjuring up a meaning for what is presented to the eye.
The brilliant colours achievable through the acrylic medium are ideal for achieving a bold statement about the interplay of shape and emotion.
Acrylics virtually scream at the viewer to come on over and take a close look! And when the viewer peers closer, the colours capture the attention, figuratively grabbing the lapels of the viewer's jacket and pulling that viewer bodily into the painting.
Colour and the arrangement of different colours upon the canvas create a dimensionality that can persuade the observing mind that, indeed, three-dimensional space has been captured upon the canvas. It feels as though the viewer could step into that space and explore all the mysteries of that intriguing unknown territory.
In each of my works my goal is to convey a single idea that will speak universally to each viewer individually. There is no greater satisfaction in art than realizing one's work has succeeded in so doing.