MARYSE PIQUE
Contemporary Abstract Painter
NEW PARADIGM
I find myself in lush gardens ; up close and engulfed by the colors and fragrances of a dream memory of abstracted seasons of experience, of innocence, an optical embrace ; the breath of encompassing foliage and flowers ; the essence of these things, their brightness --sunbathed or subdued -- project the feeling of the presence of nature, of a natural state presented on canvas as if on a candy dish of sensory delights to be indulged in, partaken as a gift of light and natural feeling that denudes over-intellectual conceits, though for all that stimulates all the senses including those centered in the mind but equaled by the weight of the heart and the sentiments of openness, of surrender; a first state of acceptance of existence without judgement and how can that be ? To lay oneself open to the vulnerability innate in us all in the face of presentiments of self-protection and cynicism not just in the world of art but the world in general is a brave and rare thing.
Maryse Pique simplifies experience to a matter of paint and canvas; experience and observation; experience of diverse cultures and genealogies; experience distilled to trust and passion through her palette and organization of paint into organic structures of self contained plastic cosmologies.
Her ability to balance the fluidity of these experiences on both an intellectual and sensory level is pretty remarkable in that one facility does not overwhelm the other, that there exists a real sense of distillation, of conclusion; a resolve that creates a resounding harmony in her work which is extremely compelling.
Her paintings welcome one to sensations known but guarded; fragile yet substantial in a confirmation of memory and longing, of a potential return to a natural state, primary but not primitive, borrowing from abstract expressionist tomes and techniques of color and angular application of paint built up in layers constructing environments of light and emotion.
Her canvasses are places of habitat where an embrace invites connection and reunification of something conjured through stillness and rhythm, motion and recovery through the observation of how these energies consolidate the colors of the world and summarize states of desire and being.
There is a visceral kinship to Mitchell, Frankenthaler, Krasner even Snyder, Gilliam or Styles but as with each of these artists, Pique emerges as a singular voice whose synthesis of what's come before-- as footnote or primary influence-- is resolved finally into her own summation of what she's seen, heard, felt, longed for, lost or obtained in that universal garden of light and life.
Carl Heyward
Art Curator
2020