Marie Vlasic BMPP Study (Nicolette) Original Oil on Board

Marie Vlasic

BMPP Study

(Nicolette)

Oil on Board

16" X 14"



Artist Bio & Press




Artist Statement



I have a strange relationship with people. I am at once fascinated and repulsed. Fear and loathing with a joyful embrace. This duality in my at-odds psyche has turned into an obsession, one which I express the only way I know how, and that is to paint. When I render the human form, I am digging into the person, pulling out what and who they are. I want to show their insides, for better or worse. By pushing and pulling the paint, the light and the shadow, I am laying them, and myself, bare on the canvas. It is my attempt to find the humanity, the God-spark, in them, and in me.



There is nothing more beautiful and horrible and lofty and base as a human being, and for me, no other subject worthy of deep exploration. I feel my soul in painting the human form, and so the flesh is always calling me.



Only oil paint will do. I fell in love with the medium, with it’s soft, sensual feel and rich intensity of color in my first college painting classes. I paint thin, in many successive layers. This time-consuming technique gives my work a luminous quality. Because of the brief, expressive nature of the images I am creating, I work from photographs, many taken myself and some in collaboration with local photographers.



I am often asked which painting is my favorite. The answer, the one I am doing now. The process of watching each work unfold, the moment when the flat canvas begins to breathe, that is the fuel that drives me to keep creating.



Thank you for your interest,



M Vlasic