A while ago on Facebook, I started seeing a large number of posts of stunning portraits, landscapes, and more by many lesser-known European artists from the early to mid 20th century. Many of these artists were unfamiliar but there was a common thread of originality, intensity, and poetic vision that captivated me and inspired me to find out more about these painters. But first, I wanted to find out about this Facebook poster, Mariah ONeill. Someone with such a good eye for great paintings must also be an interesting artist to check out. I wasn’t disappointed. I was enchanted by her many expressive portrait drawings which capture some remarkable aspect of the sitter’s personality, while simultaneously celebrating the transformation from marks on paper into something visceral and alive. I wrote to her hoping to learn more. She sent me a link to her Flickr page(see here www.flickr.com/photos/mariahoneill ) and stressed that she had little in the way of formal training and was largely self-taught, mainly by copying old masterworks by Rembrandt, Rubens, Caravaggio, etc. as well as spending much of her time growing up doodling. She said she did take some classes at her local art center and took one semester at PAFA but had to drop out due to needing to take care of her mother who was dying. Later, instead of art school, she went back to school to become a psychotherapist. She has had to struggle with serious chronic illness since 2005 and currently lives in the New England area. She attributes her involvement with an online drawing group, “Julia Kay’s Portrait Party” as being a big influence as there were a lot of excellent artists […]

I ran across Tracy Everly’s paintings on Facebook recently and was struck by the warmth and joy in her work. The clarity of light and air and the freshness of work made me think that despite the devastation wrought by the Covid-19 pandemic, we can still be awe-struck by newly revealed beauty, like seeing distant Himalayan mountains for the first time after long being hidden by industrial smog.

I love these delightful inventions by Monica Bernier that explore new possibilities for shape and sensuous color. I particularly enjoyed her whimsical series of Desert forms and the formal compositional investigations in her Collage cutouts seen in this slideshow.