The Groningen artist Anna-Maria Vargiu (1992) is best known for her paintings painted 'En plein-air'. Colorful with a strong touch, she knows how to portray the beauty of nature.
She herself says about this:
“Capturing moments, capturing the colors, the atmosphere around me, has been my only goal in art for years. I have never wanted my work to have any special meaning, to tell a story, other than pointing out the beauty of nature.”
After Vargiu and her husband had their first child, this view changed. Wondering how to proceed, the artist realized that she herself had far removed from the 'imaginative person' she was as a child. She decided to start a project that combined observation and imagination. Based on a children's book that she would write herself.
That project has now been completed and the book has served as inspiration for the series of paintings made by Anna Maria Vargiu for the exhibition 'In Paint'. Three of the paintings from the series are very large and painted almost entirely from live models in a setting that Anna Maria had built for this purpose in her studio.
The other two works are smaller, painted largely from imagination. Here and there photos have been used as reference, but for example with a completely different color palette. A special series in which the approach, use of paint, references and color schemes are very different. In addition, the work that Anna Maria Vargiu made for the 'paint' exhibition consists of plein-air paintings showing colorful flowers from the artist's own garden and impressions of beautiful places in the middle of nature.
The connecting factor in all paintings is the story of Anna Maria Vargiu herself, combined with the love for nature that she experiences while she is painting or drawing outside, en plein air.
