On Balance
Tina Ingraham
Opening Reception: Thurs., July 3, 5-7 pm
ARTIST STATEMENT
Why I paint
I was born with the desire to draw and paint. When I visit a museum I imagine myself alive in places and times depicted in master paintings. But I am not painting there. So, I feel very lucky now to reference my own painting history and master works for motivation and inspiration.
Painting Maine’s varied landscape lifts my spirit. I imagine Pissaro and Cezanne painting together in the Oise River valley north of France. Did they mix their paint in the studio before venturing into the open air? Or did they mix their paints while on site? I’ve tried both.
When I look at Vermeer’s “Woman Holding a Balance” I wonder, was he influenced by “Madonna del Parto” by Piero Della Francesco? Like most Dutch artists Vermeer may have traveled to Italy in the mid seventeenth century. Also, he had converted to Catholicism upon marriage. I wonder, was Vermeer’s “Woman Holding a Balance” depicted as a Madonna? Her bowed head is framed in a halo-like rimmed hood, and her jacket is parted to show her pregnancy. This is similar to Piero’s depiction of the Madonna, but was it intentional?
Did Antonio Lopez Garcia view Piero’s work? Garcia traveled to Italy in 1955 on a scholarship to study Renaissance painting. Was “Greek Head and Blue Dress” his response to “Madonna del Parto?” Did he paint the blue dress transparently thus alluding to the madonna parting her robe to show her pregnancy. These are questions I ask myself, and why I respond with a painting like “Time for Cake.”
I live this cycle of balance. I paint more than anything else I do. I go back to the past for information, wisdom and inspiration and that moves me forward to paint for the mastery of it.
~ Tina Ingraham
Born in Kenton, Ohio in 1947, Tina Ingraham received her Bachelor of Science in Design at the University of Cincinnati in 1970, and an MFA from Brooklyn College of CUNY in 1996 where she studied with Lennart Anderson. She received a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Milton and Sally Avery Fellowship, grants from the Pollack Krasner Foundation and Maine Commission for the Arts. Her residency fellowships include MacDowell Colony, Dorland Mountain Art Colony and The Robert M. MacNamara Foundation. Ingraham lived and worked in Italy from 1999-2002 to study Master works integral to her painting. She taught at The International School of Painting Drawing and Sculpture, Bowdoin College, Hyde School, Brooklyn College and Stephens College. Ingraham’s paintings hang internationally in private and public collections, including the portrait of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain commissioned by Bowdoin College. Reproductions of her Harbor Fish Market paintings appear in Carl Little’s and David Little’s Paintings of Portland, and in Paintings of Maine, A New Collection by Carl Little.
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