etchings
4" x 3" image size
Note: The butterflies are bursting above the box, like Pandora in spring.
Nicole Maynard
Artist's Statement
September 2008
I make paintings, prints, and drawings. Imagery varies but may include landscape, other natural forms, and geometry. Form and color are combined with expressionist paint handling. Expressionism comes from the search for truth and the acknowledgement that growth comes from change and sometimes trauma. If glossing things over is a lie (think of magazines and advertising), then Expressionism is the antithesis. It is not cold; paint is infused with feeling. Some of my images are Minimalist, focusing more on large areas of color and light rather than on marks. Paint handling and surface are still important to these works, but are subdued in favor of sublime tranquility.
I am interested in getting closer to the mystery in non-verbal experiences. I am after what is intrinsic to the human condition, what can be sensed but is difficult to grasp. I am seeking the temporal and the eternal. I want my paintings to function like poetry and prayer, without words; to be objects for spiritual reflection and experience. The essence of something is conveyed through their substance, through their materiality, through the paint (there is nothing like paint, but paint can be like so much). Optimism is present, but there is an underlying toughness, backbone that keeps these images from being overly romantic, offering credibility to redemption. This intense presence is the unifying factor in everything I do. They are objects embodying sensual and spiritual experience, icons of renewal.
A note on The Butterfly Book:
The Butterfly Book is a collection of hand-pulled intaglio prints made in an edition of ten. The first five pulls of each image will be kept as folios or books, while the remaining five pulls will be sold individually. All the images are butterfly related, 8" x 6" paper size (Arches) and are made using 5" x 3" plates. Inspired by Goya's Los Caprichos, especially the print, The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters. In place of the monsters (or owls, bats, whatever they are) flying around the slumped figure in Goya's print, I made my self-portrait in Intellect and Optimism Create Butterflies with raised arms, interacting with the butterflies.
Artist's Statement
September 2008
I make paintings, prints, and drawings. Imagery varies but may include landscape, other natural forms, and geometry. Form and color are combined with expressionist paint handling. Expressionism comes from the search for truth and the acknowledgement that growth comes from change and sometimes trauma. If glossing things over is a lie (think of magazines and advertising), then Expressionism is the antithesis. It is not cold; paint is infused with feeling. Some of my images are Minimalist, focusing more on large areas of color and light rather than on marks. Paint handling and surface are still important to these works, but are subdued in favor of sublime tranquility.
I am interested in getting closer to the mystery in non-verbal experiences. I am after what is intrinsic to the human condition, what can be sensed but is difficult to grasp. I am seeking the temporal and the eternal. I want my paintings to function like poetry and prayer, without words; to be objects for spiritual reflection and experience. The essence of something is conveyed through their substance, through their materiality, through the paint (there is nothing like paint, but paint can be like so much). Optimism is present, but there is an underlying toughness, backbone that keeps these images from being overly romantic, offering credibility to redemption. This intense presence is the unifying factor in everything I do. They are objects embodying sensual and spiritual experience, icons of renewal.
A note on The Butterfly Book:
The Butterfly Book is a collection of hand-pulled intaglio prints made in an edition of ten. The first five pulls of each image will be kept as folios or books, while the remaining five pulls will be sold individually. All the images are butterfly related, 8" x 6" paper size (Arches) and are made using 5" x 3" plates. Inspired by Goya's Los Caprichos, especially the print, The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters. In place of the monsters (or owls, bats, whatever they are) flying around the slumped figure in Goya's print, I made my self-portrait in Intellect and Optimism Create Butterflies with raised arms, interacting with the butterflies.
