New Jawnski Jawn

Maria Lassing

I have had a lover affair with paint and painting for as long as I can remember. It is a mild obsession that grew out of my need for visual stimulation. As a child any style or color of paint could invigorate me. Yet now that this affair has matured I find myself being heavily drawn to a very particular type of painting, in very particular types of colors. Maria Lassing's paintings are the essence of my attraction and for a number of reasons. Whether it be her pallet, subject or texture, they all harmoniously pull at my emotions. She creates beautiful contradictions on canvas that I have yet to be so interested in. In my opinion, she is an amazing painter. 

I am interesting in her paintings because I am infatuated with figural work. There is something about the human body that is perfect subject matter for paintings. It is the most understandable and palpable subject. All humans can relate to a human body. I believe we react more strongly whenever our senses interact with a body than with any other being or form. For example, people react stronger to seeing a person cut in half than to seeing a tree cut in half. Thus, Lassings tendency to paint people draws me to her.

 

It's not only that she paints people but how she paints them. Her color choices are bold yet restrained. I myself never use flesh tones when painting people and love to paint in vibrant bright colors. However I find her ability to fuse flesh tones with bright colors intriguing. Its as if she goes pushes it so far from reality then takes it back. Lassings colors evoke emotion so precisely to me. I feel that she uses them like a writer uses punctuation marks.

 

                      (Mother Nature 1999)

I find that the gestural qualities to her work to be beautiful. I have never seen them in person, yet i can sense an energy to her strokes and texture to her paint. There is a contradiction in the smoothness of  the color contrasted by the energy of the brush strokes (at least on a computer screen), that i find extremely satisfying. I also like that her intensity is not felt by how realistic she paints her figures but by how vigorously. Though there is not a full rendering of the figure such as in a Marcia Sewing painting, her paintings are still understandable and legitimate. Maria Lassing is an inspriration painter. I enjoy her paintings and hope to someday experience them in person.