Alicia
Mannix
Boots,
Wheels and Goddesses
Alicia
Mannix is exhibiting, "Boots, Wheels and Goddesses,"
more than 45 of her latest paintings, as Nuwandart's featured
artist for July.
Mannix
describes the mostly acrylic body of work as a "color extravaganza"
in her "spontaneous expressionism" style. It includes
a 22-painting series of each of the characters of the Hebrew
alphabet, all done on like-sized, small canvasses on stretchers.
"They
are very powerful when they are displayed together," she
said of the series, which after the exhibit will be donated
to Havurah Shir Hadash Sunday School, where her 9-year-old son
takes classes. Mannix says she was inspired to do the letters
while studying Judaic mysticism - the Kab-balah - at synagogue.
A
mother of three, including two in their 20s, Mannix paints true
to her own mix of heritage, with the Hebrew alphabet as a subject,
and her stylistic borrowing from Russian Orthodox art and its
themes.
"I
was fascinated by Byzantine art so I love pre-Renaissance mother
and child paintings," Mannix said. "I love the style,
where it is flat and doesn't try to show correct anatomy."
She said the style reminds her of how a child makes art, because
it is so two-dimensional, rather than three dimensional with
two-point perspective. "In the pre-Renaissance period,
they didn't do that. They just drew what they saw."
Mannix
said her "spontaneous expressionism" sprouts in her
art from working the canvas and seeing what comes out. In the
20 or so lager pieces for the exhibit at Nuwandart, much of
those have developed into "wheel" and "boot"
images, in which Mannix said she finds some similar symbolism.
Pieces
titled "The Wheel Mother and Child," and "Mother
and Brainchild," among others -- "The Wheel Goddess"
and "The Wheel Guy" -- incorporate "wheels,"
while "Just Boot It" and "Russian Dancer,"
contain boots. The images just spring from the canvas, she said.
"People always find something in it that I didn't see myself."
