ARTIST STATEMENT
How do we integrate the past with the present and move towards our future? I have explored this question in several series of graphite drawings: the striking presence of modern wind turbines in rural landscapes, iconic ancient and classical female forms brought into new psychological contexts, the presence and simultaneous absence of family from photos, and in the impressions and images of of an enduring stone wall from an Italian church still standing from 948 C.E.
My series, Presence of Absence, tracks the dual presence and absence of family members who have passed over time. Working with family photos, enduring memories bring the past into our present consciousness. Graphite is the ideal medium to express this. The darker the gradation, the longer ago that person has passed.
This scene shows one of those special moments in a family’s history, bringing a baby to meet its great-grandmother for the first time. Both are gone, but endure in the visual record and in memory.
In all cases, nothing is lost or wasted from the past, but is rather re-seen or re-fashioned as a step forward either in hopes for a positive future or at least as reconciliation with the challenges and changes of life.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
The artist grew up in Brooklyn, NY, and early on attended art classes at the Brooklyn Museum Art School and Pratt Institute. Many years later she studied History of Culture, a multi-disciplinary field, that allowed her to go on to teach in various areas in the humanities including creativity. After the pandemic, she moved to Chicago from Michigan. While living in Michigan, she studied graphite drawing with Armin Mersmann, and embraced this as her main medium. Themes of the contact between the past and present are core to her work. Elements from her environment such as landscape, iconic artworks, and buildings are integral subject-matter. She has had the pleasure of attending artist residencies in Tuscany and Maine. Her work has been shown nationally.
© Margaret Colarelli