Maria Curcic
Paris-born artist Maria Curcic is an oil and acrylic painter, graphic artist, designer, and wearable art creator. She attended Mount Royal College to achieve a Diploma of Interior Design (Spring 1990), and the following autumn studied Drawing at the Alberta College of Art + Design. Following her formal training, she worked as a freelance graphic artist and designer. Curcic began painting murals in 1993 and continued the practice for decades, during which time she also designed business cards, presentation graphics, colour concepts and designs for public facility renovations, logos, point-of-sale displays, and architectural renderings. She also created wearable art including jewelry and flamboyant hats for women that were sold by almost a dozen retailers across Canada. In 1994 she returned to the Alberta College of Art + Design to study Architectural Rendering, and in 2008 studied Flash MX at British Columbia’s College of the Rockies. She taught art during summer camps from 2008 until 2012.
Describing her own work, Curcic says its most noticeable dimension is its vibrant colour, especially as applied to abstract cityscapes, which she began creating in the late 1980s. “The infusion of colour into what tends to be drab, man-made architecture,” she says, “provides a whimsical view of what the world could look like given a brighter palette.
My abstract works are less structured, but equally vibrant…. The work is timeless, fun and complex enough to provide fresh stimulation with each viewing.”
By 2015, Curcic had staged almost twenty solo exhibitions, including fourteen shows in Calgary such as Vicious Circle and The Eloquence of Style Photos, as well as City Implodes in Oak Bay, ON and Expanding Dreamscapes in Victoria, B.C. and Folded Spaces in Creston, B.C She’s also participated in group exhibitions in Calgary, Victoria, and Los Angeles. Her work lives in several private and public collections in Canada, the U.S., and Europe, including those of Calgary’s Vermilion Energy and Los Angeles’s Martin Lawrence Gallery. Several magazines and newspapers, including New Home Living Magazine, Condo Living Magazine, and Kootenay Business Magazine, have printed photographs of her work.
Describing her own work, Curcic says its most noticeable dimension is its vibrant colour, especially as applied to abstract cityscapes, which she began creating in the late 1980s. “The infusion of colour into what tends to be drab, man-made architecture,” she says, “provides a whimsical view of what the world could look like given a brighter palette.
My abstract works are less structured, but equally vibrant…. The work is timeless, fun and complex enough to provide fresh stimulation with each viewing.”
By 2015, Curcic had staged almost twenty solo exhibitions, including fourteen shows in Calgary such as Vicious Circle and The Eloquence of Style Photos, as well as City Implodes in Oak Bay, ON and Expanding Dreamscapes in Victoria, B.C. and Folded Spaces in Creston, B.C She’s also participated in group exhibitions in Calgary, Victoria, and Los Angeles. Her work lives in several private and public collections in Canada, the U.S., and Europe, including those of Calgary’s Vermilion Energy and Los Angeles’s Martin Lawrence Gallery. Several magazines and newspapers, including New Home Living Magazine, Condo Living Magazine, and Kootenay Business Magazine, have printed photographs of her work.