Wallace Marosek
46 Waltham Street, Studio 202-A
As a child, I was fortunate to travel extensively with my family. During long European train rides, I was provided with paper, colored pencils, and watercolor paints and encouraged to create a visual travel journal. Thus began the joining of my two loves: painting and travel.
As I’ve continued to paint as an adult, I have found that I am most inspired to paint while outdoors, especially while traveling. My work is immediate, spontaneous, a response to fugitive light and the mercurial nature of atmospheric conditions. I am inspired to capture the unique moment with brush and paint. In terms of traditional classifications, some may conclude that I am a representational painter. However, I do not seek to accurately show objects or places, rather, suggestions of color, texture, the rhythm and pattern of light - these are, for me, the elements which compose a painting. What matters most to me is to translate nature’s awe-inspiring grandeur, whether it be landscapes or florals, into another visual language - my personal interpretation. I achieve realistic abstractions; my end piece therefore does not emphasize the exact, literal scene but rather the fundamental spirit of place, time, atmosphere, fragrances.
While I am most excited to paint when traveling and able to paint en-plein-aire, travel is not always possible. At these times, painting in my studio, I indulge myself in painting florals, at times capturing the beauty of a flower quite literally and at other times more interpretively, in all cases, exploring color and technique appropriate to the format. As in my en-plein-aire landscape paintings, I always paint florals from fresh flowers, allowing me to study their structure, color variances, response to light, and feel.
The choice of a small format for my paintings is deliberate. I want to create small works which I can complete on the spot, recording my reactions to what I see and experience. Each painting records a moment in time, unlike the next.
