Artist Statement

Drawing and painting open my eyes to the rhythms of nature: the dance of a plant, the arching branches of a tree against a winter sky, the repeating gestures of people going about their business. I hope through my work to transcribe a version of the music that is always present in life. I begin with a long period of painting or drawing from direct observation. Over time, I find movements through the canvas or paper that respond to the movements in life.

In my still-life paintings, these rhythms present themselves in large part through color: color planes that call and respond to one another, creating and negating space, directing a dance through and around the canvas. I gravitate toward complex subjects – plant life, or a jumble of vases, boxes and toys. As I work, relationships build and multiply, sometimes overwhelming in their intricacy. I get lost and then push past the confusion toward a simpler, more essential set of relationships: a palpable dance of forms, a distillation of environmental light.

I work with the tension between a realist’s drive to grasp the complex spaces and structures of life and an expressionist’s need to find an emotive parallel set forth in color chords. In the end, the work stays closely tied to the rhythms found in life and seeks to convey the experience of sitting before the subject in the quiet of the studio, taking it in, over time.

- MAYA WEBER, October 11, 2009

Press Release

COLOR IN MOTION:
RECENT PAINTINGS BY MAYA WEBER
October 29 to Nov. 18
Opening Reception: Friday October 30, 7-9 pm

Washington, D.C. – October 13, 2009 – Nationally recognized artist Maya Weber will debut a new collection of acrylic still-life paintings later this month at Orchard Gallery in Bethesda, MD. Weber’s latest still-life works are more than just a realist’s depiction of her wide-ranging and colorful subject matter. Her paintings become dancing worlds of rhythm and explorations of sonorous color relationships.

The series -- on exhibit from October 29th until November 18th – utilizes complex arrangements of plants, boxes, brightly colored toys and other objects. Weber finds rhythms in nature and balances intricate relationships of colored planes. The resulting paintings at times swing with vigorous activity, and at times unfold slowly, conveying light and calm.

Weber’s earlier works also exhibited rhythmic energy although they engaged with different subject matter: the external world of landscapes and scenes of customers and musicians gathered in restaurants and pubs. A change in the artist’s life – the birth of a first child -- forced her to find the energy she sought in her work in the privacy of the studio next door to the baby’s room. Combined with an intensive study of color relationships and theories, this shift resulted in a series of energized still lifes with carefully found color intervals.

Weber, an artist and teacher based in Washington-D.C., immersed herself in painting as a second career. She began as a journalist – a reporter and editor for a dozen years before returning to school to become a full-time artist and teacher. She studied art intensively at the Washington Studio School and Chautauqua School of Art in upstate New York before receiving her M.F.A. in painting from American University in 2003.

She is an instructor of drawing, painting and color theory at the Washington Studio School in Dupont Circle, Montgomery College in Rockville, and Northern Virginia Community College in Alexandria. Her work has been included in national juried and invitational shows at such venues as Touchstone Gallery, the Sarah Silberman Art Gallery at Montgomery College, and the Wilson Gallery in Anderson University in Indiana. She has also exhibited locally at numerous faculty and group shows. She lives in the Mt. Pleasant neighborhood of Washington, D.C.

Address: 7917 Norfolk Avenue, Bethesda, MD 20814
Hours: Monday – Saturday 10:30 am to 8:30 pm, Sunday by appointment
Information: 240.494.1911 www.orchardartgallery.com