Award Winning Laura I Gallery is pleased to present Back to Gatherings: Hope, Success and Beauty, an online exhibition in Artsy showcasing artist Maria Colom’s new body of works of Spectators.

Welcome to the world of immersive art, a place where our egos are forced into artistic endeavour. 

An interactive show celebrating the beginning of the return to gatherings after the Covid restrictions are getting lifted, the artist explores emotional and existential ideas such as Success, Hope or Acceptance. The paintings are ultimately about a state of mind. Each piece can be evaluated as a zone of mental and emotional reflection.

The Spectators Project, an association of paintings and an audience, if painting can be imagined to perform. 

The aim of the show is to uplift our spirits, to boost our self-esteem, providing positive thoughts that we all need in general, and in particular after this difficult year. The artist seeks to communicate positive feelings and make us feel accepted, liked, supported. Reflecting on her work, the artist has said “I aim to make paintings with a positive emotional impact and beauty: A moment of Encouragement, a moment of Recognition”.

Colom’s recent paintings depict spectators scenes, a combination of figurative and abstract, materiality and mark making, order and gesture and takes us to a psychological journey of the Sociology of feelings. 

There is also material experimentation to add an extra layer of meaning, a symbolic interaction of our thought processes. For instance, the series Touch Wood is painted with the use of wood as the support and wood varnishes as a metaphor for Luck or Hope.

Another example, the Series Success, uses industrial metal paints of Gold, Silver and Bronze as a metaphor for the aim to succeed, as an important goal in our current competitive society. We see value in these metals, or is it even too much of it and we gravitate towards avarice?

The uplifting energy of her more colourful use of colour for a positive psychological response in the viewer.

How can the feeling of the collective be transferred to the viewer? Deliberately, these paintings are presented on the surface of the canvas, without depth, as in reaching out, the artist’s intention is for the characters to communicate or even challenge the viewer. A symbolic interaction, reversing the traditional relationship between art and viewer.

The show presents 15 new paintings, created during lockdown from large scale to intimate smaller works, from very colourful to monochromatic. 

The crowds the artist depicts are reflective of the society we live in, a reminder that within the crowd there are countless individual stories and unique experiences in a celebration of our diversity.

They are paintings about people, for people to see and feel and get a boost of your self-esteem, maybe smile or think and then move on.

Maria Colom is a contemporary Spanish artist. Born in Palma, Mallorca, 1978 she was educated at City & Guilds of London Art School BA (Hons) Fine Art  after graduating in LLB (Hons)  Law by Salamanca University. She has had Solo Shows in Spain and the United Kingdom. Her work is housed in many private collections and public collections including Camper, Mallorca and Asmedit in Barcelona, Spain.

Please contact the gallery for images and further information.