Maria Marstrand - An attempt at analyzing an artist's oeuvre


Photographer : / Nicky De Silva /

I had the great pleasure of discovering Maria Marstrand’s œuvre thanks to a strong recommendation from a fine collector friend of mine who knew her work would appeal to my sensibility.
The most value one can find in an artwork stems neither from its form nor content, but its electrical charge. And in the case of Marstrand’s œuvre, whether it be her paintings or large-scale drawings, the work emits a force that is at once poignant and powerful and at the same time feminine and floral. This The muses she makes deliver a message that is at once monstrous and transcendent, There’s a joyful expressivity and undeniable poetry to her work which emanates a pure and raw sincerity.
This talented artist has a great future ahead of her.
Sincerely,
Deborah Zafman
Galerie / Paris

In a sunny studio, Maria Marstrand's paintings come towards me. A meeting where the light of the studio and Maria's slim, blonde figure form a contrast with the paintings at first glance - large, rather dark paintings with raw textures, carved by rough lines representing humans, or rather humanoids. The colours are pasty, the brushwork expressive, bordering on brutal, with evidence of commitment, agitation. These paintings refer directly to l'Art brut (raw art), a label created by Jean Dubuffet in the mid-1940s which gained new relevance as figurative art made its reappearance on the international art scene. The genre comprises art created far away from the influence of the academies - including works by the Cobra group and Maria Marstrand. Crammed with surreal overtones, it is un-planned and barely thought out. On the contrary, it is the result of an inner compulsion, a drive that will not be held back. Content and expression have their origins deep inside the artist. Ultimately, of course, it is all about emotions. About feelings accumulated during light and dark times, of love and hate, trust and betrayal, joy and despair. About feelings as intense as a child's conveyed in the surreal, expressive naïvism which forms a link between Dubuffet, Cobra, and Maria.

The associations to l'Art brut and Cobra are my own, imagined by the outside observer. Maria's art is not a result of outside influences. It was born of her own experiences, formed by her own turbulent and emotionally intense life. She is not keen to talk about this period in her life, but it cannot be ignored if you want to penetrate the layers of colour and get through to the figures. She learned the hard way what it means to be alienated, unseen, to feel ignored and forgotten. A tough education, a lesson in survival, but most importantly, it taught her the deeper meaning of the word empathy. It is this empathy that pervades her paintings, the non-verbal compassion for the brutally broken figures and the ill-treated creatures who come towards us begging - now, demanding - attention. And receiving it. An indomitable power, a life-affirming strength, characterizes these paintings. It is Maria's strength, acquired during her teenage years to keep her from going under, now vibrating from her paintings.
Her grandmother - the secure refuge of her life - encouraged her, praised her, and taught her to appreciate the paintings of her ancestor, the Danish Golden Age artist Wilhelm Marstrand. In the manner of a child, Maria began to draw line drawings of men and women, animated human beeings balancing on the subtle borderline between reality and unreality, surrealism.

Odd existences, outsiders who do not conform to norms, are at the centre of Maria's art. At times, they are almost invisible, hiding in the layers of colour; at other times they step forward, liberated, bold and with a life-affirming, irresistible charisma. She is now in this second period. The raw heaviness of the large, figurative and colouristically moderate paintings has given way to a new lightness and a new light. The line drawn figures have been brought to life. They have been liberated from the limitations of ink drawings and revived as outlines, in collages made from vibrantly coloured paper strips and bits of patterned wallpaper on chalk white paper. An unaffected and self-assured mixture of naïvism and expressionism - seasoned with just the amount of surrealism needed to prevent the obvious joy from blunting the existentially grounded message around which all of Maria's artistry revolves. In my view, the most important criterion for good art could be that it speaks not just to the eye but also to the emotions. Maria Marstrand more than lives up to this criterion. Her intuitive mastery of the difficult art of composition and her considerable skills as a colourist are an added bonus.

Britte Montigny


The nerve fibres of sensitivity

Maria Marstrand has mastered the art of moving and gripping the observer. Her special talent lies in challenging the texture and emotion of painting. It is as if she paints - softly and gently - with the tips of her fingers, so directly and sensuously that the effect is almost painful.

A unique flair possessed only by a handful of artists - a distinctive form of rhythmic intimacy and sensitivity - is present in her paintings. She obviously invests much of herself and her emotional range in her art. There are no scheming tricks and no filtres; there is no need to pore over calculated effects to reach an understanding of where she wants to go. As the author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry said: "Only by engaging your heart can you see clearly. The essential meaning is invisible to the eye" - and this is precisely where Maria Marstrand's art takes us. It comes from the heart, and tens of thousands of words would not help to interpret it.

As an artist, Maria is self-taught. This means that she - fortunately - escapes both zeitgeist and academic restraints in her direct and honest paintings. She is refreshingly beyond time, place and fashion. She paints what she feels and senses. Her style is both expressive and impressionistic.

Maria Marstrand painted her first work of art at the age of ten. It was not until much later that she made the leap into a career as an artist. Her journey into the world of art was an expedition, inspired in equal measure by curiosity and her own experiences. She spent some time studying the history of art and became fascinated with the Danish Cobra artists and their spontaneous and expressive painting techniques. She explored the works of the great masters, among them Picasso and Dubuffet. Even today, the excitement she found in their work resonates in her paintings.

Happily, she has found her very own use of form. Its impact is figurative yet utterly abstract. Tuneful and beautiful, her colours and shapes fuse, creating tense atmospheres. Some of her paintings reflect a certain melancholy, but also a sense of anticipation and a brittle recklessness. Perhaps a unique kind of naivety? - The artist obviously possesses a direct connection to the deeper layers of her own psyche - layers containing strong and unpredictable emotions.

An artist's drawings always arouse interest. Are they preparatory sketches for paintings, or do they have their own identity? Both, in the case of Maria Marstrand. She sparkles in her drawings, becoming almost giddy, playful and anarchistic. Even teasing and desperate, with strong splashes of humour. In the paintings, however, she is trying to achieve a certain calm, a harmony, and a quiet intensity. At the same time, powerful emotions make themselves felt. Tied down. Underplayed. As if a strong sense of modesty is preventing her from telling the whole story.

In fact, secrecy is one of her great qualities. She hints. She leaves room for the imagination. She knows that the essence of a painting is invisible to the eye, yet at the same time she is constantly approaching the essence of her art. A paradox - yes. But that is precisely the wonder of art: it moves between what is known and what is unknown. Beautifully and wisely, Maria Marstrand has mastered this movement.

Ole Lindboe
Editor, ART Magazine. Author of many books on Danish and international artists.