Maxine Manges

Rattan by Maxine Manges
Rattan

Acryic on Canvas, 24" x 24"

Doubtful Sound NZ

24 x 24 Acrylic on canvas 2025

From the Top of the Gondola, Queenstown NZ

36" x 48" acrylic on cradled birch board

From the top of the Gondola Queenstown

Mixed media on paper  30" x 22" using water color and collage 

Spontaneous Crucifix

Mixed media on paper 12.5 x 10.25"

There is another piece to go with this painting, all stripes
Dahlia Rapture

24 x 24 Acrylic on canvas 2024

These are two separate canvases
Flowers on the Kiln

These two 24 x 24 paintings side by side are talking the same language. The Stripes share the same energy as the still life and extend the exerience of the dazzling colors of the room and the arrangement

"Strata" Landscape Mash Up

Sitting in the gallery, I used watercolor pens to practice my control of the horizontal lines, resulting in memories of various landscape occurences, trees depicting deep space, water and rocks, as well as wriggly man made totems. Go fugure.

My work is vibrant. I can draw easily and am familiar with different materials. Having been trained in painting in the 70’s, I was introduced to Minimalism and Abstract Expressionism, as well as the English painters at that time, I love Francis Bacon and Howard Hodgkin. Art history was straight forward as we were looking back at the history that was presented to us in books, With the choices we saw in our lecture theater, I loved Matisse and Bonnard, rejected Renoir and Monet, (too squishy), loved Gauguin and Cezanne over Chagall, preferring their strength to the softness. This does not explain my love of color and pattern, which comes from Tribal African Art . Perhaps it’s a combination of all of it.  Reverence for compositional strictness and love of painterly excesses were just right for me. The result is that my style evolved to waft between gestural flourishes and minimalist rigidity.