Saratoga News

Photograph by George Sakkestad

Saratoga artist Maxine Solomon looks at one of her paintings, 'Who Is to Teach?'

Traveling artist captures human spirit

By Sarah Quelland

Local artist Maxine Solomon is a down-to-earth woman whose paintings meld her experiences in the United States, Latin America, Asia and Africa into stark portraits of the human spirit.

She now brings these works of her Saratoga studio to Belmont with her current solo exhibition, No Borders, No Boundaries, which comprises 17 recent oil paintings and runs through Nov. 30 at the San Mateo County Arts Council Manor House Gallery.

In her artist's statement, Solomon says: "It is not pain, poverty or hunger that I seek to express. Rather, what moves me is the common thread that binds all people; the palpable yet inexplicable quality that makes us human."

Her oil paintings capture that quality. Her understated portraits come to life on the canvas through a skillful buildup of layers, with each affecting the next to create the final image. The result is a subtle wash of colors and brush strokes from which real people emerge.

Solomon spent a great deal of time in Zambia while her husband worked with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), an organization dedicated to assisting small-business development. While there, Solomon says, "I got very involved with the people."

Living for several months at a time in this African country rife with poverty, unemployment and the AIDS virus, Solomon found her niche. She conducted painting workshops in rural communities using acrylic wall paints. "We did a lot of work on painting what was meaningful for them," she says.

In the beginning, her students focused on creating paintings they thought tourists might buy, which Solomon refers to as "trite village scenes." She worked hard to encourage them to paint from their hearts.

"If they painted from their hearts--what was meaningful for them--it would capture the spark that would be meaningful to an audience," she explains.

Closer to home, Solomon has worked in Santa Clara County with low-income families and homeless people she says have also touched her life and her art.

After visiting their homes to assess and report on their needs for a local community service organization, Solomon says, "I found myself getting very involved with them and with their problems." She adds, "I [began] to realize there was a common thread that ran through humanity"--a theme she consistently returns to.

No Borders, No Boundaries draws from these experiences and more, merging the worlds and the people together without drawing lines between them. Solomon's work evolves in part from sketches and reference photographs, but mainly, she emphasizes, it comes from feelings, emotions and memories.

"The way I feel about the people comes out in all the paintings. Those experiences are all in there because the people are there." Sometimes, she says, she steps back from a painting and the face of someone she once knew is looking back at her. She says it always surprises her because "I never put it there."

Solomon began painting at age 8, when her mother gave her paints for her birthday. She has been painting off and on ever since. There have been stretches in her life when she did not paint because running a women's apparel business and raising three children made time scarce.

Now that her children are grown and she is no longer involved in the retail business, Solomon has time to nurture her talent and her passion. She says painting "gets to be quite an addiction. If you don't get to paint for a while, you feel like you need a fix."

With more free time on her hands, Solomon plans to return to Zambia. "I had some absolutely fantastic experiences there," she recalls.

Perhaps her next travels will yield another exhibit as compelling as No Borders, No Boundaries, echoing her philosophy that "it's really basically one world and one common thread."

[ Back to Contents Page | Saratoga News Home Page | Archives ]