ARTIST STATEMENT
To connect with joy, hope and wonder, I began embroidering silk rainbows onto vintage photographs at the beginning of the pandemic. I found this process of delicately stitching rainbows onto ephemeral, dog-eared and orphaned photos to be immensely calming during that time of deep turmoil. It allowed me to slow down and meditate on what filled me happiness and gratitude.
I sought images of nature, families, friends, lovers, women, nurses and firefighters. Embellishing the grays and sepia tones with luminous pastel silk rainbows seemed to me an act of optimism. It was all about needing to see the rainbow in ourselves, in each other and in our world.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Marie Cameron is an imaginative realism oil painter and mixed media assemblage artist based in Los Gatos, California. Through her lush and often surreal imagery, she explores human interactions with the environment and each other.
Born in New York City, Marie Cameron grew up in Maine and Nova Scotia. She earned her BFA, with distinction, from Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick, majoring in painting and minoring in sculpture. Soon after, she was awarded a prestigious Canada Council Grant and worked in giftware design and children’s book illustration while maintaining her art practice.
Since settling in the California, her award-winning work has been shown and collected internationally.
She has exhibited with Museo Diocesano, Pacific Art League, Triton Museum of Art, Marin Museum of Contemporary Art, Gallery 24, New Museum Los Gatos, SOMArts, Saint Mary’s College Museum of Art, Anne & Mark’s Art Party, Citadel Art Gallery, Santa Clara University Art and Art History, Las Laguna Gallery, Sanchez Art Center, Vargas Gallery, New Museum Los Gatos, Iwasawa Oriental Art, Whitney Modern, Arc Gallery, Woman Made Gallery, Curated, de Young Museum, Artist Alliance, Photo Trouvée Magazine, I Like Your Work Podcast, Cabrillo Gallery, O’Hanlon Center for the Arts, Arts to Hearts Project, What’s Next For Earth, Visionary Art Collective, Art Expo Dallas, Blue Line Arts, Works / San José, Jen Tough Gallery and has been published in The Memento, Red Wheelbarrow, Photo Trouvée Magazine, Poets and Artists, Artists of the Bay Area, Wild Lands, Fun Size and Painting World.
© Marie Cameron