Artist Maria Doering exhibits a series of paintings, each of which is a mixed media work of acrylic paint, printed linocut, lithography, fabric or knitting. Doering combines intricate patterns, textures, and systems that speak about a person’s character and energy, while referencing the structures of cells, blood vessels and neurons. She call this imagery “lacery”. Internal Dialogues is at the Corridor Gallery November 2 – December 15, 2016.

Describing her process and the work on view, Doering explains:

What is a person?
Are our bodies filled with a soul?
Is there a separation between body and soul or is it one and the same?

These are questions that have influenced my art-making in the last 4 years. I visualize what fills our body as a vessel, and interpret its many layers, physical and metaphysical, in my artwork. The printmaking process requires a lot of physicality from me. Having allergies and asthma creates another set of obstacles for me as an artist, but I love the physical challenge that printmaking brings. The more arduous, intricate, and repetitive a process is, the more I become engaged with it. Painting on my prints provides the perfect counterbalance to this method, as it takes hours of calm and peaceful work rather than physical exertion.

This quest for visualizing the lacery of people around me started with first trying to understand inner workings of my body. I imagine hundreds of layers of patterns and textures that are intricate, dense and beautiful. Each portrait of a woman is someone I have connected with over the years. I am always drawn to strong, determined, independent women, each with their own story and personality. Their portraits are what I see as an outside observer, and how these women present themselves to the world. The layers of lacery are a representation of what is below the surface and what the viewer cannot readily see. This combination is what makes each woman who she is and is the essence of her being.

Maria Doering is a German multidisciplinary artist and printmaker, living and working in Dartmouth since 2012. She left Germany with her family at the age of 15, arriving in New Jersey. She received a BFA summa cum laude from the Hartford Art School in 2007, majoring in Printmaking with a minor in Art History, then completed an MFA at Concordia University in 2010. Doering’s work has been exhibited in Canadian cities including Calgary, Kelowna, Montréal and Halifax as well as internationally in the US, the UK, Denmark, Italy, Taiwan and Japan. In 2015 her print Enveloped Evolution was an honourable mention in the 5th Tokyo Screen Print Biennale, and in 2016 her print The Old Soul was selected as a finalist in the International Print Biennial organized by the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts. After founding Doering Editions in 2010, she taught undergraduate printmaking courses at NSCAD University in Halifax since 2013. Maria Doering is the current president of the Nova Scotia Printmakers association and organized their inaugural print exchange and touring exhibition in 2015. A broad selection of her work can be viewed at www.maria-doering.com

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Located inside the Visual Arts Nova Scotia office at the Halifax Seaport since 2000, the Corridor Gallery is complimented by a historical legacy of Nova Scotia culture, simple yet modern architectural elements and an array of current cultural activity in the Cultural Federations of Nova Scotia office. The Corridor Gallery is located at 1113 Marginal Road, Halifax, Nova Scotia and is open Monday through Friday, 9:30am – 5pm.

Visual Arts Nova Scotia advances the visual arts through leadership, education, and communication.

High resolution image for press available via Dropbox.

For further information regarding the exhibition contact:

Carri MacKay
Programming Coordinator
902.423.4694 | 1.866.225.8267 | f: 902.422.0881
vans@visualarts.ns.ca | www.visualarts.ns.ca