|
MONIKA WRIGHT creates abstract art in Nova Scotia where she has lived since 2005. Winner of several awards, including the prestigious Mary Pratt Crystal award, her distinctive style of painting has lead to recognition, first locally and then internationally.
In this monthly newsletter I will share my creative journey, the hills and valleys that I travel to create my abstract paintings, seascapes and wearable art fashion line. If you'd like to receive these musings, please enter your email on the form above. Thanks for all your interest and the inspiration you give me every day to be courageous and kind. |
 "THRIVE" - 30" X 40" - $1800
THE ART OF LETTING GO
Monika Wright There is one question that I get asked more than any other: “How long does it take you to make a painting”. It’s a tricky one to answer and most artists have practiced the standard reply, something like: “I’ve been at some version of this painting for 15 years; I just keep improving it.” If a painting works out well in just a day, does that mean I haven’t put enough effort into it, or does it mean that the skills I’ve developed over many years and many paintings, after practice and patience - and impatience - have come together in a sweet moment of joy in this painting? Has my intuition and skill merged in perfect synchronicity? Still some paintings tease me with the challenges. The first touchstone is always my intuitive response, whether I feel the artwork conveying passion. Only when it fails to do so, do I examine the work for issues of balance, tension, light or composition. I question every inch of the canvas seeking to discover the solution to the uneasiness I feel about the work, that sense that something is not quite right. I rely on intuition first, technical or intellectual analysis secondly. I turn it around and around. I live with it. I try brush strokes and colours and glazes, until, eventually – and sometimes in the middle of the night – the image appears and I know what will complete the painting, give me a sense of wonder, a sense that the work is ready for the world to see it. This much I’ve learned, whether the magic happens in one stroke or hundreds, it won’t flow to the canvas at all if I have blocked it with fear, frustration or intellectualized structure. When I encounter those obstacles to creative flow, I have to step away from the canvas, breathe deeply and ‘Let Go’, so that something new can move into the space and come alive inside me. It’s when I allow that light to shine that I will create an artwork that vibrates with emotional energy. Letting go of the need to control the outcome, allows the beauty of life to spill out in vivid colour and form. Now ask me how long it’s taken me to learn the lesson that we can’t always control the outcome, nor is it in our own best interests to do so. As it is in life, so it is in Art-making. Wisdom and skill take time to develop. A wise decision can be made in seconds once we’ve learned and lived. A painting may take tiny bit longer, though (smile!). |
|
STUDIO TOUR 2019 DATES: JULY 5, 6 & 7
MY NEW STUDIO IS OPEN AND I WANT YOU TO SEE IT! 25 WATERBURY LANE, UPPER TANTALLON Now in its 9th year, this open studio tour celebrates art and artists in the St. Margaret’s Bay area. During the three-day event, studios, group showings, and galleries are open between 10:00 am and 5:00 pm to welcome visitors and showcase the works of diverse talented artists.
Find locations using the Studio Tour Guide Book (including map and GPS coordinates) available at visitor information centers and kiosks in the spring. To view a PDF version of the 2019 Studio Tour Guide, use this link: 2019 Studio Tour Guide BookDownload Follow the blue lighthouse signs around the Bay. We’ll be expecting you! 
Wishing you kindness in your daily lives, the circular kind where you receive it in abundance and pay it forward, where the attitude and gratitude spread like lupins in Springtime in Nova Scotia, endless kindness like the waves that crash upon the shore. Those are the images that surround me where I live and create my art. It is this place where I am grounded and the world I explore that inspires me. It is your love and support of my art that gives me strength. Making art can be a lonely journey, but you have invited me into your imagination and your hearts. Thank you for all you do to share your thoughts and feelings about my art, to those of you who have brought my creations into your own homes and lives. May you have an inspired year filled with peace, kindness and love.
"Transcendence" - 24"x24" - $1175
Gift Certificates AvailableIs it time for a unique gift, from your heart to your loved one's? Original art is one way to let someone know that they are too special for an ordinary gift. And if you're not sure which piece would strike their fancy, there's always the Gift Certificate option. Birthdays, holidays, weddings...any time is the right time for a gift of original art. Questions? Just send me a note: monika@monikawright.com I look forward to helping you inspire someone special with one of my artworks.
|
The Blank Canvas and the Paradox of Inspiration
May 2019 The blank canvas stares back at me. Will I treat it as a challenge fraught with trepidation, or an invitation to be brave and explore the emotions of this moment? That’s what I do, I paint emotions, not scenes you’d recognize, so I rely on what’s built up inside me, or what I allow to enter into my soul when I open myself to the universal energy, the magic that is waiting for expression. My paintings are intuitive interpretations that develop into series organically. With this series, though, I’ll be creating with intent: an exhibition inspired by water, the oceans, lakes and clouds that sustain us and demand that we pay more careful attention. "Our Water, Our World" will open at Art Lab Studios in Parrsboro, Nova Scotia on June 1stand will show until June 20th. I realize now that I have to paint to an expectation, so there is a certain amount of apprehension. Since my process is usually more spontaneous, less focussed on theme, I need a different approach. As with all obstacles we surmount, it is also rewarding find a way to express this theme with passion, so that it will stir a visceral response immediately. It’s my version of the 5-second rule. What does it make you feel when your eyes first catch sight of the painting? I stand with the challenge for a moment, and then take the leap. I’ll choose the colours first, which will inspire the mood. Payne’s grey, silver, gold and white evoke an enchanted feeling, that magical time of day when the sun goes down and colours fade after sunset. Creating movement with the reach of my arms; how far will I spread the paint out across the canvas, how wide or small will my brush move across the waves, that will be the next step. Now I have it. I am swimming in the ocean itself and feel the painting creating itself. This is the sweetest time of creation, when the painting tells me where it wants to go and I merely jump in and swim and play until it lets me know that it’s time to get back on shore. The hardest part of creating a painting is getting started, but without taking that leap of faith and beginning with that very first stroke of colour, the painting has no where to go. So, it’s up to me, not the muse, to say I’m ready to get started. It’s not about waiting for the image to appear fully formed in my mind, for ‘inspiration’ to come knocking at the door; it’s about having the courage to begin anew, each and every time. 
| New Designs in Wearable Art Fashions
|
|
|
|
Art from the Heart
April 2019
I create abstract art. It’s confusing for some people, challenging on a level that makes them feel uncomfortable, perhaps even unsure about their ability to “get it”. And in great part, that is probably because they’ve heard so much ‘art-speak’ describing the work and the artist’s intention in a way that simply doesn’t make sense or doesn’t resonate with them. They feel they should recognize what they are looking at, or at least be able to communicate their reaction to the work of art with the same kind of language. But I’d like to propose another approach to viewing my art; one that allows you to just see, be in the moment, and let come what may. No pressure to ‘get it’.
You see (pun intended!), it’s completely natural for humans to have a need to recognize something real in the artwork. It’s how we’ve been programmed by evolution for a fight-or-flight response: ‘is it dangerous, or welcoming?’ We look at clouds, or rock formations and see faces and animals. But we can also just look out across the expanse of mountains and valleys, across the miles of ocean or dessert, and enjoy the view. There’s a sense of freedom in that. And it’s what I’m suggesting you do with abstract art. Let it affect you the way a sunny day with gentle breezes and swaying trees touches you.
When I create my abstract art, I’m hoping to convert my emotions and ideas into colours, shapes and textures that transcend reality, transcend vowels and consonants. I want to make art that is accessible to everyone on a visceral level. There is no need to understand what the painting is saying, no requirement to explain the message. When you look, just feel, just breathe and rest, and let the painting envelope you. I paint emotion. I paint the energy that flows through me, and back out into the universe. When you look at my art, we have collaborated. And it is precisely because you have added your own imagination and emotion to the work, that we are connected.
I think there is something else unique to abstract art: it has the potential to reach across boundaries, to break through barriers and create connections in a non-confrontational way. With abstraction, we have much more opportunity to experience the painting than we would be able to do with realistic depictions that tell us what we should be seeing. Abstraction can affect us on a level that doesn’t require clarification
Abstract art leaves space for beauty and the message to be interpreted on a personal level. What I create with my artworks is merely one step in the process. When you look at the canvas, what you see, and more importantly, what you feel, is personal to your experience of the world. There are no dictates, no right or wrong ways to respond to the work. If the artwork speaks to you, if it takes your breath away, even for a moment, it has affected you. That is how art can be transformative; how it can rearrange our vision of the world and create connections we never thought were possible.
April 2019
I create abstract art. It’s confusing for some people, challenging on a level that makes them feel uncomfortable, perhaps even unsure about their ability to “get it”. And in great part, that is probably because they’ve heard so much ‘art-speak’ describing the work and the artist’s intention in a way that simply doesn’t make sense or doesn’t resonate with them. They feel they should recognize what they are looking at, or at least be able to communicate their reaction to the work of art with the same kind of language. But I’d like to propose another approach to viewing my art; one that allows you to just see, be in the moment, and let come what may. No pressure to ‘get it’.
You see (pun intended!), it’s completely natural for humans to have a need to recognize something real in the artwork. It’s how we’ve been programmed by evolution for a fight-or-flight response: ‘is it dangerous, or welcoming?’ We look at clouds, or rock formations and see faces and animals. But we can also just look out across the expanse of mountains and valleys, across the miles of ocean or dessert, and enjoy the view. There’s a sense of freedom in that. And it’s what I’m suggesting you do with abstract art. Let it affect you the way a sunny day with gentle breezes and swaying trees touches you.
When I create my abstract art, I’m hoping to convert my emotions and ideas into colours, shapes and textures that transcend reality, transcend vowels and consonants. I want to make art that is accessible to everyone on a visceral level. There is no need to understand what the painting is saying, no requirement to explain the message. When you look, just feel, just breathe and rest, and let the painting envelope you. I paint emotion. I paint the energy that flows through me, and back out into the universe. When you look at my art, we have collaborated. And it is precisely because you have added your own imagination and emotion to the work, that we are connected.
I think there is something else unique to abstract art: it has the potential to reach across boundaries, to break through barriers and create connections in a non-confrontational way. With abstraction, we have much more opportunity to experience the painting than we would be able to do with realistic depictions that tell us what we should be seeing. Abstraction can affect us on a level that doesn’t require clarification
Abstract art leaves space for beauty and the message to be interpreted on a personal level. What I create with my artworks is merely one step in the process. When you look at the canvas, what you see, and more importantly, what you feel, is personal to your experience of the world. There are no dictates, no right or wrong ways to respond to the work. If the artwork speaks to you, if it takes your breath away, even for a moment, it has affected you. That is how art can be transformative; how it can rearrange our vision of the world and create connections we never thought were possible.