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Maria Pierides"In my paintings, I render in colour the stories of the physical and emotional landscapes that formed my experience of being born in Greece and then growing up in England and Cyprus and now living and working in Wales."
The actual process of painting relates to this theme, as Maria uses mixed media, building up and scraping back areas of paint to capture the atmosphere, mass, and light of the landscapes she is aiming to depict. She explores ways of bringing these landscapes together and plays with the similarities and contrasts: How being caught between two time perspectives – the Eastern Mediterranean is two hours ahead of England – two different kinds of light, two different cultures, results in both a feeling of richness and diversity of experience as well as a search for rootedness in the moment and in space. Dusk and the changes in light between sunset and darkness capture this feeling of ‘homelessness’ and search for ‘home.’ On the other hand, in the plays of light, in exploring ways of translating experiences and representing them in paint on the canvas, there is a liberating beauty too. Having moved to Wales, with its beautiful and vast landscapes, and living within earshot of a running stream, Maria continues to render in her work her surrounding environment, along with aspects of personal history, experience, and imagination, poetry and myth. |