Paula Martiesian
Paula Martiesian graduated from Rhode Island School of Design in 1976 with a degree in painting. Through her extensive study she developed a strong sense of color which brings a sense of vitality to all of her paintings. For inspiration, Martiesian has drawn upon everything ranging from dreams, to symbols, to highway trees as they are observed from a car window. Her work has been shown at the Providence Art Club, The Happy White Gallery, Newport Art Museum and the Bert Gallery. She was the editor and co-publisher of Quix Art Magazine, was the chairman and founder of Center City Contemporary Artists, and is the co-founder and co-president of Gallery Night Providence.
She states, “I see colors that others don’t see – burnt pinks in the dry grassy fields of the freeways, rosy reds in the watery reflections of my dogs’ drinking dish, and ducky purples in the shadows of the evergreens in my garden. It is natural, therefore, that my paintings reflect this lifelong connection with color.
“Lately though, my paintings have changed. The more I explore nature, the more complex a mystery nature becomes. I am an ill-prepared explorer, armed only with paintbrush, tubes of color and a myopic gaze.
“It is no longer enough to ‘solve’ the pictorial problems of composition, color, and line that a painting poses. I have to try to recreate the very atmosphere I see, translating a natural ecosystem of color onto a very unnatural rectangle of canvas.
“And no where in this recreation am I even attempting to make what I see look real. I don’t want to paint a flat faithful rendition of a tree in my garden. I want to paint a dynamic field of color that sways and dances and sings of hue and movement. I want to ‘punch’ the viewer in the stomach with a fistful of color. I want to hit that same viewer over the head with a 2’ x 4’ canvas chock full of nuance and complexities.
“I have always figured my personality was a contradictory mix of subtlety and mack truck, and my paintings are beginning to reflect that rather unlikely combination. It is an intriguing direction that, as a painter, I have just begun to explore.”