The Story Behind the Painting – Page 2

21Jul 2023 by DebbieleeMiszaniec

Earthly Delights: The Social Circuit

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

The Social Circuit, 24"x36" o/c, Debbie.lee Miszaniec Welcome to the third instalment of a series of blog posts going in-depth into the thoughts and ideas behind each of the paintings in the Earthly Delights series. The first is here. The series is based on my experience navigating health and diet culture as a long term participant. You can read the full background by following the link to that blog post below: Project Background: You can read more about the project background here. The banquet piece of party food in The Social Circuit was situated in the weight and cardio room at a local public fitness and aquatic centre in Calgary. However, The Social Circuit is not about the struggle to lose weight and get in shape. Although many who are…

06Jul 2023 by DebbieleeMiszaniec

Earthly Delights: The Party Ended Too Early

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

Welcome to the second instalment of a series of blog posts going more in-depth into the thoughts and ideas behind each of the paintings in the Earthly Delights series. You can read the first instalment here. The series is based on my experience navigating health and diet culture as a long term participant. You can read the full background by following the link to that blog post below: Project Background: You can read more about the project background here. On the other side of Reader Rock Gardens, separated by an iron fence on the peak of the hillside is Union Cemetery, founded in 1890 looking north and west across the bustling centre of Calgary. A Story As Old As Time pictures the fence that divides the gardens from the cemetery,…

15Jun 2023 by DebbieleeMiszaniec

Earthly Delights: A Story As Old As Time

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

A Story As Old As Time, 24" x 30" O/C, Debbie.lee Miszaniec Welcome to the first instalment of a series of blog posts going into the thoughts and ideas behind each of the paintings in the Earthly Delights series. The series is based on my experience navigating health and diet culture as a long term participant. You can read the full background by following the link to that blog post below: Project Background: You can read more about the project background here. Tempting Fruit, 9"x12" o/c, Debbie.lee Miszaniec I began this series thinking about the link between love and hunger, two of our primal drives. I was still thinking about gardens as a pseudo natural space after having painted a small homage to Bosch in Tempting Fruit (2022), and I…

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.

Category: The Story Behind the Painting