"This moving, richly visual memoir reveals the uplifting power of art and creativity through sharing the stories of ten powerful personal paintings."
If a picture paints a thousand words, Mary Marquiss’ Behind the Painting: An Artist's Memoir conjures countless emotions and experiences. A testament to the uplifting, transformative power of art and creativity, it’s a poignantly personal memoir presented through the lens of ten paintings, with detailed commentary on the story and process behind each work revealing how beauty and grace can be found through life’s biggest challenges.
In her lucid introduction, Mary Marquiss explains that while “creativity and curiosity have been major forces throughout my life”, and her “childhood was woven with an abundance of playful exploration”, she wasn’t “encouraged to pursue art beyond a form of play”. After working in a psychiatric hospital and large corporation, becoming a mother at the age of thirty-seven saw the author rekindle her creative side, with subsequent challenges of life — from divorce and her sister’s suicide, to her own serious health diagnosis — informing her paintings, as her paintings themselves “mirrored back my life”, each of them providing strength.
Structurally, each of the book’s entries shares compelling biographical context in a lucid and lyrical style, with the bold, richly evocative art (depicting flowers or birds, striking still-life moments, portraits capturing people caught in time, and emotionally arresting abstracts and cityscapes) accompanied by explanatory text.
A beautiful gift for readers seeking solace and a new sense of clarity and joy as they navigate life’s more turbulent waters, Behind the Painting: An Artist's Memoir also comes recommended for readers who are interested in the creative process, and the healing capacities of art.
| Primary Genre | Biographies & Autobiographies |
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Behind every painting, there is a story.
A poignant and heartfelt memoir uncovering the highs, the lows, and the paintings of an artist with a lifetime of stories to tell.
Mary Marquiss invites you into the world behind her canvas and reveals the personal story behind each piece of art. Through serious life challenges, including divorce, family suicide and cancer, Marquiss discovered a relationship with her art in the form of a circular language. Throughout her life, Mary Marquiss has turned to her art as a constant source of inspiration and strength, navigating life’s challenges and changes through her creative expression.
Behind the Painting opens a window into the artist’s creative process, revealing the experiences, emotions and insights that brought these works to life.
A comfort to anyone who has dealt with divorce, suicide, a stroke, cancer or loneliness.
Behind the Painting: An Artist's Memoir features in the following genres: Non-Fiction Books of the Month, Biographies & Autobiographies, Biography, Literature and Literary studies, The Arts, The Arts: art forms, Paintings and painting, Paintings and painting in oils, The Arts: treatments and subjects, Individual artists, art monographs
Behind the Painting: An Artist's Memoir is available in Paperback
Behind the Painting: An Artist's Memoir was written by Mary Marquiss and published by Whitefox Publishing Ltd
