Maggie Broda

I have trained as an artist since I was a child, and I am totally at ease with all areas of drawing, painting and creating. Specifically I use colour to communicate in my work. I find a lot of power comes from human figures engaged in their discipline. The Detours & Dreams series of athletes and musicians demonstrates that concept. I am also drawn to the texture of paint as it builds up and reaches out. Acrylic works well for me because of the short drying time, but I also love to work in oils.

Where ever I go I sketch. The painting first in the Detours & Dreams series, a trumpet player, is a  jazz student who was performing at a club in Toronto. He appeared to be in a cloud of sound that he had formed with his music. It was a strange thing but as I sat with my pen and worked away I saw nothing else in the room but him. Later friends recognized the player and remembered how he played, with such a lonely sound. I think that painting captures a feeling.

The actions of people fascinate me, not their faces, clothes or bodies so much but their disciplines. People have auras which I reproduce with colour. Their inclinations are determined in my work by the lines they carve spatially. The texture develops with the layering of the medium.