The Story Behind the Painting – Page 2

01Jun 2023 by DebbieleeMiszaniec

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…

24May 2023 by DebbieleeMiszaniec

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…

27Oct 2022 by DebbieleeMiszaniec

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…

20Oct 2022 by DebbieleeMiszaniec

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…

06Oct 2022 by DebbieleeMiszaniec

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…

29Sep 2022 by DebbieleeMiszaniec

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!

22Sep 2022 by DebbieleeMiszaniec

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.

15Sep 2022 by DebbieleeMiszaniec

New Painting: Idealized Figures

Earthly Delights, The Story Behind the Painting, What's the Big Idea?

Idealized Figures, 8"x10" O/C, $450 Unframed Meet Idealized Figures, one of the newest paintings in my series exploring the relationship between a little pink pear and a cake plate of jelly doughnuts. I was working on correcting and straightening some of the lines in the painting, when it occurred to me that this is what we do in life too; with our diet practices we attempt to correct nature and idealize our own forms. With this insight I decided to emphasize my correction lines in the painting.

01Sep 2022 by DebbieleeMiszaniec

I Painted A Serene Lake Scene On My Garage Door!

Commissions, The Story Behind the Painting, What's the Big Idea?, Working Artist

Sawmill Lake, 8'x16', exterior mural on wood garage door, 2022. Early this summer I painted this exterior mural on the new garage door my husband built and installed last year. It was his idea to do a mural on what looked like a big blank canvas to both of us, and with that sort of faith in my abilities, how could I decline the opportunity right? The image we chose was from a recent visit to the lake country around my husbands childhood home. This was a small local swim and camping spot walking distance from his home. You can see our grown up kids in the picture, but I opted not to include any figures in the painting. Neighbourhood response was so positive to this mural that I have…

04Aug 2022 by DebbieleeMiszaniec

Collaborating with Kitchen Feminism: Not Enough Cubicles Here

Covid-19 Art, Events & Announcements, Introduction, The Story Behind the Painting, What's the Big Idea?

Starting from the observations of writers that women's roles have been in some ways rolled back to the expectations of an earlier era due to the effects of pandemic lockdowns and school closures, the Kitchen Feminism project asked a diverse group of women to reflect on the ways they perceived their own lives to have been sent back in time by the pandemic: Mom I need this space for my zoom meeting! From the Kitchen Feminism Project, courtesy producer Dawn Van de Schoot, photographer Shannon Smith and stylists Nicole Does Makeup. Below are sketches of some of my ideas for this collaborative project which brings the individual stories of women’s experiences of Covid-19 to life in a series of photographs and short videos produced by Dawn van de Schoot. My…