Inspired by the culture and local artisans of her native Peru as well as classical Renaissance artists, Upstate artist Monica Arledge creates her own impressionistic oil and chalk works full of color and shapes. Her exhibition, “Timeless Impressions: The Bright Colors of the Impressionist,” is scheduled for July 29 through Aug. 23 in Gallery II of the Artists Collective | Spartanburg.
An artist’s reception will be held from 5 to 8 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 21, as part of Spartanburg ArtWalk. The reception and exhibition viewing are free and open to the public. The 25 pieces in the show will be offered for purchase with prices ranging from $200 and $1,200.
“Growing up in Peru, I always was inspired and fascinated by the amount of talent of our local artisans, our culture, our music and food,” Arledge says. “I love art in all its expression. I decided to become an artist, admiring the local artists as well the classical Renaissance movement. Also, painters such as Diego Velasquez and Jonh Singer Sargent were a big influence for me.
“My art is based on the impressionist,” she adds. “I don’t seek perfection in visual appearances. Instead, I try to get down on canvas an ‘impression’ of a subject that appeared to me at a certain moment in time.”
For the exhibit, Arledge says that besides brushes, she used other tools, such as knives, stick chalk, her fingers and more, “giving my own impressions with visible strokes, emphasizing accurate depictions of my subject with form, light and shadow.”
She wants visitors to understand that they can “find freedom in a form of any color and shapes. We artists can be poets expressing beauty with no words.”
Arledge is a certified Spanish instructor, a pastry decorator, a chocolatier and a self-taught artist. She has been a member of the Artists Collective for two years.
“I’m honored to have been given this opportunity to exhibit at the Artists Collective,” she says. “The Artists Collective is one amazing and humble group of talented artists, a group that I am so fortunate to be part of.”