Maevaughn Chiu | STUDIO 411
I paint using my intuition, the shapes and forms are part of my internal visual library. Images collected from my earliest memories. With small sketches and cut outs to plan the composition I allow the colours to evolve to create a mood or feeling to each piece. Using acrylics, emulsion and chalk paints I enjoy the sense of applying the paint in an almost mediative way, finding the right curve or brush stroke to create the balance I am looking for.
The images at the forefront of my focus at the moment are from my early days at art college in the 1980’s. The playful, colourful imagery of post-modernism Richard rogers, Ettore Sottsass and the ‘Memphis’ collective and Missoni. With a nod to the art books that were part of my childhood, Wasily Kandinsky, Ferdinand Leger, henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, and more recently discovered Agnes Martin.
I am always fascinated by Modernist paintings in galleries. The minimal shapes frequently framed in ornate traditional frames. I love the tension between these two, the final object being a fusion of two visual languages.
I like to source old frames and give them a new life, painting an image specifically for that frame and creating a new and ‘desirable’ art object.
My degree was in Theatre Design in 1989 from Nottingham Trent University. Working first in theatre and later in interiors as a decorative painter and muralist. I also painted portraits and landscapes from life.
I have travelled and lived in countries in Africa (as a child), Solomon Islands, Hong Kong and Canada, all of which have influenced my visual interest and language.
