Earthly Delights – Lost In The Garden

Earthly Delights – Lost In The Garden

Earthly Delights, Events & Announcements, The Story Behind the Painting, What's the Big Idea?
Tempting Fruit (After Bosch) - 9"x12" O/C For the past few months I have been devouring a mountain of books and furiously planning, scheduling and scribbling in preparation for this day! June 1st marks the start of a pretty major new studio undertaking: Over the next 6 months I will be creating a large scale triptych oil painting inspired by Hieronymous Bosch's masterpiece, The Garden of Earthly Delights (c.1500) For this project I will be expanding upon my still life food paintings, by incorporating them into an encyclopedic larger than life triptych referencing the moralizing religious art of the Northern Renaissance. The inspiration for this painting follows from my own experience navigating contemporary health and diet culture: I lost over 35% of my body weight to achieve a normal range…
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Earthly Delights: Background

Earthly Delights, The Story Behind the Painting, What's the Big Idea?
Enchantment - 11" x 14" o/c - $825 CAD I'm writing this post today to share the origins of the Earthly Delights series of paintings. My intent was to share a statement about each of the paintings in the series in the coming months, however I was loathe to repeat this background with every post. It might also get a little repetitive for you the reader if you are following along reading the statements for each of the pieces. So this post is mainly here so I can link back to it in successive posts. The inspiration for the Earthly Delight series follows from my own experience navigating contemporary health and diet culture: I lost over 35% of my body weight to achieve a normal range BMI, then maintained that…
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July 7 – 16 2023: Western Art Show@the Calgary Stampede

Art Sales, Events & Announcements
As mentioned in my blog post about my Gallery@501 show Moments & Lifetimes, 11 of the paintings in the show are coming to the Calgary Stampede Western Art Show here in beautiful Calgary AB this summer. All of the paintings in the Western Art Gallery and the Mini Masterpiece Salon are available to purchase, so make sure you save some of the coin in your old time-y coin purse (but maybe pop your plastic into your coin purse instead of coin, they do debit & credit) for the Art Show, which is in the Western Oasis, housed in the BMO centre on the stampede grounds! See you there 'pardner!' In the Western Art Gallery Chimera - 12"x12" o/c - $819CADButter Tarts For Two - 11"x14" o/c - $825 CADIdealized Figures…
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Moments & Lifetimes – March 15 – May 4 2023

Moments & Lifetimes – March 15 – May 4 2023

Events & Announcements
#120, 501 Festival Avenue, Sherwood Park, AB 21 of my dessert paintings are on view now in the Foyer Gallery at gallery@501 in Sherwood Park Alberta. It is the largest show of my smallest paintings that I have sent to the Edmonton area so far. So if you are in the Edmonton area and have been curious to see my work in person, this is the time to do it! Artist Statement Want a taste test? Enjoy these images of the show! The inspiration was really about these glass fronted cabinets that constitute the Foyer Gallery. I had for a while thought that it would be interesting to show the paintings in a glass front display like a bakery window, so when I saw the call for submissions for the…
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Earthly Delights: Works in Progress

Earthly Delights: Works in Progress

Earthly Delights, The Story Behind the Painting, What's the Big Idea?
I'm writing this at about the halfway point of the project as funded by Calgary Arts Development's individual artist project grant program. Earthly Delights - 10 Paintings of Food in Places, has close to half of the paintings nearing completion now, and I have begun assembling the reference material for the next three paintings in the project. By the time you read this blog post I anticipate the first four paintings will be complete, the next three will be well into development and I will be assembling reference material for the final 3 paintings in the project. So by way of a progress report I will share process images of the first four paintings along with a few production notes on each of them. In later individual posts I will…
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Working with Momentum

Art Sales, Events & Announcements, The Story Behind the Painting, What's the Big Idea?
After The Rain, 42" x 42" Acrylic on Canvas, $4450Debbie.lee Miszaniec I was pleased to be able to deliver a custom reproduction of my 2005 painting, After The Rain, to the Momentum offices earlier this fall. They purchased the print for their new offices in the Radisson Heights area of Calgary. This painting in particular was of interest to their staff as the painting depicts an actual place in Penbrooke Meadows, one of the communities near their offices, and a community I was a resident of for 11 years. It depicts the first sunny day after a solid couple weeks of rain, when everything, even abandoned furniture, expired holiday lights and neglected lawns, appear fresh and beautiful as the sun lends it all sparkle. I have a good history with…
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Gallery Closure: October 15th 2022

Gallery Closure: October 15th 2022

Art Sales, Events & Announcements, Working Artist
Arts Aqui, Marda Loop Calgary: Closing October 15th 2022 It has been a short residency since Arts Aqui asked me if they could carry my art last winter. However the building has been sold to a developer and Arts Aqui will be closing its doors permanently on October 15th of 2022. It is a shame as the owner is passionate about art and artists, however I know she will go on to new and exciting adventures n her own creative practice. Paintings formerly carried at Arts Aqui If you are looking for a piece of mine that you saw there you can contact me directly through my website to see if it is still available. If you represent or know a gallery in Calgary that would be a good fit…
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New Painting: Enchantment

New Painting: Enchantment

Earthly Delights, The Story Behind the Painting, What's the Big Idea?
Enchantment 11 x 14 O/C $750 CADDebbie.lee Miszaniec, 2022 So Enchantment came about after I painted Tempting Fruit earlier this year. I loved the way that the chocolate cupcake in that painting just seemed like an over the top amalgam of all the wiley ways it could look like a tempting treat. Tempting Fruit, 9"x12" O/C - $595 CADDebbie.lee Miszaniec 2022 That painting made me think of other romantic gardens. So of course it was a short step from Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights to Fragonard's french rococo garden in The Swing. Prior to painting Enchantment I baked and frosted several cupcakes, really going for an over the top frothy look for the cupcake like the heroine in Fragonard's The Swing. From there I painted Cupcake Digest, to study the…
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New Painting: Cupcake Digest

New Painting: Cupcake Digest

The Story Behind the Painting, What's the Big Idea?
Cupcake Digest, 5"x7" O/C, $250 CAD Framed Say hello to Ms. Cupcake. After painting Tempting Fruit I became fascinated with this idea of a cupcake with wrapper seductively coming away from the base of the cake. I could not get the image of the heroine from Fragonard's The Swing , as a frothy pink cupcake, out of my mind. So, determined to do a version of this painting, I set about creating some particularly frothy pink cupcakes as models for the upcoming paintings. Cupcake Digest is about me getting to know this new character in my paintings. Stay tuned for future appearances of Ms. Cupcake!
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New Painting: Thought & Feeling

New Painting: Thought & Feeling

Earthly Delights, The Story Behind the Painting, What's the Big Idea?
Thought & Feeling, 12"x12" O/C, $750 CAD unframed Our pear is back in Thought & Feeling, torn between Sisyphus and Dionysus again. Early on with this painting I wanted to shift the deep red tone I had started with to a lighter warm pink, creating a feeling of nostalgia in the painting. I saw it as sort of a companion to the longing in the earlier painting I posted about, I Only See You. that painting was about unfulfilled longing, whereas Thought & Feeling is about the power of fond recollections over the intent to follow a reasoned course of action or desire for changes.
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