Sense of calm in Maria’s ‘Stillness’ art exhibition

AN EXHIBITION of recent paintings by Maria Levinge entitled ‘Stillness’ is on view at the Pigyard Gallery in Spectrum Art & Framing in Selskar for the duration of the Opera Festival.

Maria is an Irish landscape painter originally from County Waterford and now living near Cloham in Co. Wexford. She is primarily a self-taught artist but she was also tutored by her brother, the well-known artist Niccolo d’Ardia Caracciolo.

She has held numerous successful exhibitions including at Newtownbarry House in Bunclody, Ranelagh Arts Centre and the Jorgensen Gallery in Dublin. and has shown her work at Boyle Arts Festival, Eigse Carlow and the Royal Ulster Academy.

Maria’s paintings have been selected for the Royal Hibernian Academy exhibition in Dublin, Ireland’s largest exhibition of contemporary art. She has also been awarded residencies at Tyrone Guthrie Arts Centre in Annaghmakerrig, Co. Monaghan, and Cill Rialaig Artists’ Retreat in Co. Kerry and Ballinglen in Co. Mayo.

In 2012, she won the Mayoral Award at Wexford’s Art in the Open painting festival and in 2014 she received a bronze award at the same event. Her paintings are often started on location and completed in the studio where memory and sketches help her to strive towards simplicity, to pare down inessential details and give her small paintings an elemental quality and a sense of calm and stillness.

Describing her artistic journey, Maria said: ‘On a painting trip to the west of Ireland some years ago I found myself sitting in a coastal field. Being there, I became conscious that the sights and sounds I was seeing and hearing were the same had I sat in that place a thousand years earlier.

‘It had a profound effect on me, to be within this timeless place and stepping away from the rush life; to embrace calm, to be still and let the sounds of silence in and grounded in the simple beauty of the landscape. Since that experience, I have discovered that the same consiousness can be found in almost any setting and my paintings strive to be little meditations on stillness, regardless of the time of day or weather.’

Maria Levinge’s work is in many public collections in Ireland including Axa Insurance Art Collection, the Office of Public Works Collection, Newtownbarry House Collection, Carlow IT and Wexford County Council.

Her work is also housed in private collections in Ireland, the US, Canada, France, the UK and Italy.