The Feminist Agenda Artist Marie Fox | In The Moment

Painting is my passion. I’m wild about the act of painting and the subject of the female figure. Perhaps because I’m a tall woman, I create women who are solid and strong. And with my own maturity has come a desire to invent women who, without self-consciousness or pretense, are simply going about the business of being themselves. Like the female gods of the Greek myths I loved, I want them to express power. That sense of female strength becomes more visceral and real as I use increasingly larger canvasses and must confront the painting with my whole body.

Although I’ve been a painter for most of my life, it was only five years ago that I began creating my women. The impetus was a move back home to New England to care for my elderly mother, a landscape artist and spirited woman. Earlier in my career a visit home profoundly stirred my memories of childhood. I had a story to tell which expressed itself in a folk art style. My career soared when The White House asked me to create two artworks. Painting every day has been my creative means of getting to the heart of things. Now I’m exactly where I want to be as an artist because I’m painting my first love, the human form.

What fascinates me about the body is its architecture, the hard, angular structure of bones beneath curving flesh. Working from photos of female models, I first search for a good pose. I have to be excited by arm angles, space between limbs, or a twist in the torso. The pose must convey weight and balance, and suggest an emotional attitude or a story. When painting, I exaggerate the pose and proportions. I’ve discovered that the body gives my invented woman a physical existence and the face an interior life. I want the painting to speak, first to me, then to the viewer. Often collectors tell me my women have become like friends. I’m amazed and honored.