To meet Maureen Gasek, both in person and in her work, is to meet a force of nature. Although she calls herself an abstract artist, her paintings evoke fires, distant galaxies, the natural world in all its glory and destruction. The pieces selected here say to us midnight thunderstorms and dark, luminescent prairies.
Maureen has been painting and working with different media since childhood. Growing up in a country environment, her earliest memories of making art was digging in the dirt to get clay and smashing up grass and dandelions to make yellow and green and berries to make purple. Her canvas was the sidewalk and “sometimes I would rub my fingers raw on the concrete when creating my imagery.”
Growing up in a low income household after her father died made her very resourceful. The fields, flowers, bugs, sky, sunrises, sunsets and night time stars were her palette. She sold her first piece of art in first grade for .25 cents, a colorful collage of her hands to a high school student. Although trained in oils, she currently works in acrylics as their versatility allows for limitless experimentation.
As her art develops, Maureen’s connections to teaching and promoting the arts increase. The passions that drive her art also drive her commitment to teach others to discover, release and refine the artist in themselves. Her workshops in her home create a safe space to play and simultaneously hone the artist’s eye.
“Part of the “Internal” series”. “These works are found deep within and cover and uncover some of the places that have been hidden or suppressed. They are a surprise and I enjoy doing each and every one of these. A little bit of the deep within is uncovered and revealed and gets to live outside.”
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