Angela Maxwell's Art

“Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.”                                      William Morris, 1880 

About Angela Maxwell

Angela Maxwell was born in England and received her formal art education at Gray’s School of Art in Aberdeen, Scotland. For two years she studied drawing and painting, and then specialized in textile design for her final two years.

Angela has worked in several different media, and her work today is primarily with acrylic on canvas.  She uses paint, along with fabric, woven materials and paper, to reflect her belief that nothing is quite how it first appears.  A recurring theme in her work, and one which reflects her optimism about life, is the notion of looking through the dark, vague, or ill-defined, into brightness, colour, and stimulating detail.

Angela has exhibited in Ottawa, Toronto, London, and other Ontario centres.  Her works are in the offices and homes of collectors in various parts of the world, including Germany, England, Switzerland, the United States and Australia.

She has been active in the Ottawa arts community, having established a new gallery, the Heartwood Gallery, housed in a non-profit community centre.  Heartwood Gallery opened in September 2001 and Angela curated a number of shows involving Ottawa community artists.  The Gallery’s mandate was both to support community programs for disadvantaged artists and to mount challenging shows by established area artists.

Angela’s Artist Statement

My art is the place I go to have a room of my own, to express my joy, to celebrate, and to make sense of who I am.  My paintings rarely come from any fixed concept or image, but flow freely from my subconscious, which I am always eager to explore.

I often use everyday objects, still lives or interiors, bringing them into my own alternate universe where there is an abundance of colour and motion.  This is a vehicle to draw the viewer in, but from there it is a layering process, adding and subtracting with colours and texture.

Although the finished artwork is important, the creative process is everything to me. I keep painting because it uses my mind in the most interesting and alive way.