About Mari | Links | E-mail | Guestbook

Mari Plaza-Munet
mplazamunet@msn.com
www.mariplaza.com
(312) 498-5324

 

My current body of work is the result of a lifelong interest in human development and interaction. Before becoming an artist I worked in the public sector dealing with health and social services issues. This position allowed me to serve and interact with an eclectic mix of people: individuals infected with AIDS, children and adolescents with immense life skill challenges, farm workers, incarcerated males, and low income single mothers. Through my interactions with them I began evaluating my own life in a way that I was unable to do previously.

My search for meaning intensified once art entered my life. I began painting about issues of sexuality, love, violence, disease, death, and spirituality. These are the issues that seemed to link most of the human beings I have met so far. It therefore seemed inevitable to me that paint would bring me closer to understanding the abstractions of this deep interconnectivity among humans.

I use two areas of study to guide me in the representation of ideas:

One is the formal language of paint. I continuously investigate color, form and the evolution of painterly techniques throughout the history of art. Second is the study of human conduct developed from current social belief systems and philosophical trends. In “Distopia in Paradise” for example, I take objects from nature and slightly transform them into machine weapons to convey the increased accessibility of guns in our society. Bleeding hearts hang abundantly from the “branches” like fruit on a tree.
In my studies about human development I get inspired by the search of inner contentment and the diptych “Virtue” represents images of what may be a physical image of inner beauty.

Inspired by the works of Goya, William Blake, Rothko, Nathan Oliveira, Mathew Ritchie, Kiki Smith and others, these visual metaphors attempt to explore the limits of existence; each piece, for me, is a commentary about the way we negotiate our social, psychological, and physical environment. Landscape becomes the contextual medium through which I explore these issues, but only because our physical environment—as relative and ever-changing as it is—ultimately decides for us the conditions necessary for life to exist.

As an artist, I would like to continue exploring how we look at and understand one another as we search for our own individual purpose.

My art pieces convey or stimulate the basic idea of love, communion and
connection between everyone and everything, the invisible threads that unites us all. I would like as an artist to give a visual representation to the human experience of the spirit. I am not talking about religion I am talking about the spirit. Someone can be an atheist or a naturalist and be a spiritual person. I am not talking about Christianism, Buddhism, Judaism, Hinduism or Islamism… I am talking about spiritualism, the understanding of the existence of an inner self, manifest it through a special vital force or energy. The “logical world that we choose to live” becomes illogical when stands alone without the acknowledgment
of the inner self. Sometimes it is concerning to realize that the active dialogue of violence, hatred and chaos have more importance than the provision of solutions. It is fascinating to see that a piece of music, a special aroma, looking at a beautiful sunset or sharing with a best friend can activate the presence of our higher inner self through a special rush of gratifying energy, yet some human beings fail to recognize this is the act of the inner self.
I think people start dying when they do not address the presence of their soul.

-Mari

 

 

Virtue
Mixed Media
40” x 72”
2005

 

Soul Mates IV
Acrylic on Canvas
36" x 48"
2003