Featured Artist Caroline Z. Marcos

Featured artist Caroline Z. Marcos draws her inspiration from the spirit. Enjoy her portfolio and see more about her work by visiting her website.

 

 

I am in love with color and form. I use them to create works about meditation and introspection. For me it is an act of meditation itself to make the work.  I often explore personal narratives, symbols and archetypes, much like the traditional meditative imagery of Mandalas; the ancient Sanskrit word for Circle.  Some of my pieces tell a story, with the archetypal symbols, like birds, and femininity which allude to a memory or a dream, the past and present.

 

 

I incorporate text as a pictorial element that sometimes clarifies or convolutes the narrative.  Text is both a visual element and an information tool. Abstracted color and natural forms are overlaid with text, collage material and encaustic wax.  This approach to working in mixed media lends itself to creating a visceral world made with multiple layers, an approach that imbues the work with meaning.  Therefore, it is the layering process that acts as a metaphor for the layering of the soul, the depth of the unconscious which is the well, from which my imagery is extracted.

 

 

As an Orthodox Christian born in Egypt, and as an American, two main figures have influenced my life; that of the American artist Georgia O’Keefe and the father of monasticism, St. Anthony the Great.  I especially admire the quiet solitude which both of these figures spent their lives trying to capture.  I believe Georgia O’Keefe couldn’t have brought the world’s attention to seemingly insignificant natural imagery, giving presence to bones, flowers and clouds, without her quiet solitude in the New Mexico desert.  This quiet solitude can take one to a desert within, much like the desert of Egypt, where the first monastic, St. Anthony the Great set foot to venture the same internal terrain.  There he discovered light and dark, deceptions and truth and struggled to hold onto the light and truth.  The inner desert is full of rich unconscious imagery that I’m excited to elucidate everyday.

 

 

What are your goals?

My main goal that I am working on within the next 3-5 years is to have solo shows and get gallery representation. In effort to do that I’m working hard to create sold bodies of work and intermittently entering juried exhibitions that are local to where I live. I hope to eventually make a full living form my art. I believe that it’s what I was created to do. I spend much time evading this truth and not believing it for myself but I’m proud to finally own this truth for myself.

 

 

What are you working on now?

Currently, I’m working on a series about meditation and introspection, I’m considering using different types of imagery, including representation as well abstract imagery, and mainly acrylic paint with collage. I sometimes use text when it’s relevant to the work (either enhances the concept or brings in a balance in the formal element of the piece). The sources of my text vary from lyrics of inspiring music, poetry to verses from Scripture that mainly focus on praise and meditation.

 

 

What inspires you?

A lot of different things inspire me, sometimes unbeknownst to me. Mainly I would hone it down to music, nature, colors and words and other artists.