8ArtistInfo

Questions and comments about the artwork on this site are welcome. You may write or email the artist at:

Maureen Dean
PO Box 12282
Salem OR 97309-0282

Email: info@maureenswatercolors.com

"I am inspired by everyone and everything I see -- from the smallest child to the most intricate flower. We live in a world of such misery and pain, and hope is the only thing that keeps me going. Despite the troubles that plague our world, I still see beauty and hope all around me. These are the images I am compelled to bring to paper."

"I have yet to paint a portrait that I didn't photograph myself or didn't really want to paint. I just can't paint something I'm not excited about, or that I didn't "see" as one of my "moments" -- that is, my paintings are representations of what I call "moments" of things or people I saw that moved me. That's why the variety of my subjects is endless, and there are so many paintings that I have planned but not yet found the time to tackle."

Maureen works almost exclusively from photographs she has taken herself, and shies away from portrait work because subjects are often insistent on choosing the photograph.

Maureen was born in the Pacific Northwest, but has traveled internationally, and lived on both the East and West coasts of the United States, as well as in the south. She also spent two years working as a field supervisor on an archaeology dig in the middle east.

"Archaeology is a passion for me, second only to my painting, and although I have to be content at this stage of my life as an "armchair archaeologist" only, there are many sights and scenes and people I photographed and remember in my travels that I am still anxious to bring to life in my artwork."

Inspiré par les livres des artistes Zoltan Zsabo, Jan Kunz, et Stephen Quiller, Maureen est une artiste en autodidacte. Veuve avec 5 enfants, elle réalisais des peintures aquarelles pendant une courte durée (1994-1997), apres quoi elle etait contraint d'abandonner l'art pour subvenir aux besoins de sa famille. Elle recommençait l'education à l'unviversité et quand elle a 49 ans, obtenu le B.A. French/Classics (un diplôme de la litterature francais et l'histoire ancienne). Après son fils etait reçu des blessés graves de la guerre en Iraq, elle a reprenais l'art pour faire un ensemble des peintures pour rendre hommage à les soldats morts. (attendu 2009).