PAINTER, PRINTMAKER & ILLUSTRATOR
ABOUT ME - Maddie K. Durso
Nice to meet you! I am originally from New Jersey and went to the College of Fine Arts at Boston University to study painting and printmaking. After graduating in 2019, I started a career curating the work of other local artists while continuing to build my own artistic practice. From 2021-2023, I had the opportunity to live in Germany as a full time painter. During this time I truly developed a voice that I knew I wanted to grow back home. I now live in Brooklyn, NY as both a curator and artist. If you are interested in working with me or purchasing a piece, reach out via dm, email or the contact form above.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Flowers have a life in the lines of their petals, the color of their shadows, and the elegant shapes that happen when they are reaching for the sun to grow or wilting, slowly curling out away from their body. One could say the same about the human figure - a beautiful elegance naturally lives in our curves and lines. This essence is what I strive to evoke in my paintings and my woodcut prints.
I am exploring different ways to convey flowers and figures through abstraction. Georgia O’Keeffe once said, ”I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way--things I had no words for.” Similar to O’Keeffe, I see something and break it down by shape and color. My art engages the balance between the abstract and the realistic. I use flowers as a vehicle for finding abstract compositions and as a jumping off point for investigating the characteristics of color and paint.
In my paintings, I have been applying paint in an almost sculptural way, trying to create a conversation between thin and thick and between the suggestion of figures and flowers. Figures and flowers are both old subjects in art history that I am trying to re-calibrate and, as opposed to O’Keeffe, I am taking a more process based approach that puts emphasis on the growth of the painting as opposed to the imagery.
Each painting is informing the next and they are growing with each other. Growing and changing as flowers and people do.
I am exploring different ways to convey flowers and figures through abstraction. Georgia O’Keeffe once said, ”I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way--things I had no words for.” Similar to O’Keeffe, I see something and break it down by shape and color. My art engages the balance between the abstract and the realistic. I use flowers as a vehicle for finding abstract compositions and as a jumping off point for investigating the characteristics of color and paint.
In my paintings, I have been applying paint in an almost sculptural way, trying to create a conversation between thin and thick and between the suggestion of figures and flowers. Figures and flowers are both old subjects in art history that I am trying to re-calibrate and, as opposed to O’Keeffe, I am taking a more process based approach that puts emphasis on the growth of the painting as opposed to the imagery.
Each painting is informing the next and they are growing with each other. Growing and changing as flowers and people do.
