Maxine Solomon

Artist Statement:

An image forms in my mind and the seed of a painting is sown. As the image takes shape on the canvas it also takes control of the process and the outcome. The painter Richard Diebenkorn summed it up well – “I can never accomplish what I want — only what I would have wanted had I thought of it beforehand.”

The combination of quiet glazes with active brushstrokes helps to capture a moment in time, leaving the viewer to wonder if the image is merely an abstract painting or a colorful landscape. Delve deeper within the layers of paint to find hidden images and meanings or merely travel within these layers to see an intricate and textured surface. As I work, each painting speaks to me not only about the beauty of our world but also of its diversity and ecological endangerment.

Comments About the Work

Kenneth Baker, Art Critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, said in a review on March 1, 2012, “‘Turneresque’ may not be too grand a word to describe the recent work of Bay Area painter Maxine Solomon. She packs her canvases with so much aesthetic information that they generate on their own the sort of pictorial storms and atmospheres that the British master of the sublime loved to conjure. She, however, has cast off the last vestiges of figure and subject and gone for sheer immersion.”

Preston Metcalf, Curator for the Triton Museum of Art in Santa Clara, CA, states, “Her work is pure visual poetry and as such makes the viewing experience a true reward.”

George Rivera, Executive Director of the Triton Museum, refers to Solomon’s paintings as “a strong, consistent body of work that digs deep beneath the surface and touches levels of thought many do not achieve. Her work celebrates the depths beneath and beyond the surface.” 

David Fought, artist/sculptor said “Instead of smeared and scraped paint magically coalescing into a landscape – as I usually see them, I saw it as if you’d had that exact idea all along and just added paint. I think what I’m saying is that those abstractions of paint and texture are amazing. These babies aren’t snapshots. They’re Cathedrals.”