Featured Artist Phyllis Tracy Malinow

Mixed media artist Phyllis Tracy Malinow presents a fascinating collection of rice paper sculptures and masks. See more of her work by visiting her website.

 

 

The nature of my art is personal, original expression.

 

 

Who I am is interpreted through imagination, vision and art materials. I had worked in the Arts, in theater/film with remarkable masters, i.e., set/lighting/costume designer, writer/director, actors, producers behind the scenes. Eventually my own creativity emerged through concentrated hard work, encouragement from mindful instructors, peers and exploring visual art.

 

 

My father was a W.P.A. artist/instructor who became a master paperhanger of antique wallpapers and murals (creatively painting in missing birds, foliage details and the like on antiques). My late husband was a most powerful painter and master art instructor, as well as a mentor to many. Blessed by extremely gifted people who influenced me, some unknowingly, my direction became visual art. I organically developed an innovative, unique voice as a result.

 

 

My aim is to create meaningful work of quality, grace, and form, using painterly colors, texture, story and hopefully, poetry. Through nature and humanity, I seek a true harmony or a push-pull most of all; the pure visual communication of being alive. I have had a definite personal vision from the start which developed nontraditionally. My art stands on its own within its world.

 

 

Certainly, life psychologically, spiritually, imaginatively, culturally and intellectually have influenced me. Powerful images from masterful artists such as painters Degas, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Blake, Chagall, Leger and Bacon, sculptors Moore and Maillol, German Expressionists Beckmann and Kollwitz and Mexico’s Siqueiros, Rivera and Orozco were so inspirational.

 

 

I’ve created a technique that encompasses all the mediums I’ve been drawn to. Glorious oil painting provided a magical prelude, followed by challenging myself with woodblock mono printmaking. Carving an image onto a block of wood was exciting and demanded a different thought process; an approach with greater discipline.

 

 

Patience, preparation and better concentration were needed with the process. I loved wood and handmade papers—carving or forming visual stories felt so natural. The resolve I experienced was thrilling. The medium demands focused thought and technique first and freedom later, which was a great life lesson in discipline.

 

 

This powerfully creative time ushered me forward from printmaking into three-dimensional form. My painterly bent of storytelling uses rice papers as paint, opening up another fresh path for my visual language and sensibility. The sculpture is driven by imagination—an inner dialogue flowing sculpturally into form. My love of color and paper perhaps stems from my Dad’s paperhanging, the legendary scenic designer’s structure and my powerful painter husband.

 

 

These last years were difficult due to the pandemic and the loss of a dear family member from Covid. I healed my way back through art producing these mixed media rice paper sculptural masks and sculpture. On the positive side, it became a most productive, resourceful time indeed.

 

 

It’s fantastic beginning a new project—gathering ideas inwardly without planning but from only a mysterious feeling and sparking an uncharted, deeper journey not knowing where these early steps will lead as they whisper, directing me forward. I keep breaking ground artfully with a full desirous vision to be seen and heard and post on social media like Facebook. What a life!

 

Artist Phyllis Tracy Malinow invites you to follow her on Facebook.

 

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