JOY 1 Painting

Currently represented by Galerie Lenoir, Montreal, Maggie Romanovici was born in Romania, during the Communist dictatorship. In a closed society, there was an attraction to the arts and culture in general, as the only escape in life. Maggie showed a natural inclination towards drawing and colored pencils early on. In elementary school, teachers noticed that Maggie was very talented at drawing. Her father, also having had a penchant for painting, exerted an important influence on the artistic development of his daughter. So Maggie began to attend art school. Here, for six years, she formally learned drawing, watercolor, oil painting, and whatever else the school curriculum contained. Then she continued to hone her skills in private lessons with consecrated local painters. Her first participation in an exhibition was at age 12, with an oil painting. Others followed. Because the Communist regime in her native Romania did not favor an artistic career, Maggie chose to teach languages. The contact with art never left her, but it was just later in her life and in Canada that Maggie returned to painting full time. The first years are dedicated to figurative painting, but little by little Maggie discovers the freedom of expression offered by abstract painting. She continued to take art classes on new techniques and materials to enrich and polish her way of expressing herself. Her curiosity and desire to progress remain constant. Maggie draws her inspiration from her many life experiences lived in different countries, trips to several others, moments in everyday life, culture, and nature. She is comfortable with oil and acrylic, but she likes to dip into watercolor, ink, and alcohol, or stained-glass effect material. She also favors the mixed media by the introduction of collages, the mixing of mediums, modeling paste, gold, silver, fabrics, etc. She favors the superposition of the color strokes with the spatula, but she also loves smooth glazing effects. She produces abstract works in which the ideas, the emotions are seized by the colors and by the movements. The resulting paintings are distinguished by bright, vibrant colors, surprising textures, fluid, and dynamic movements, which give a real feast to the eyes and nourish the spirit. The brushstrokes or spatula always give direction and fluidity to the creation, easy to follow by the eye. For her, painting is very personal. By immersing herself in it, she becomes increasingly free and self-revealing.