Oil Paintings by Margo Cavis

Icebox Gallery presents Margo Cavis's debut solo exhibit "Holding My Breath". "I love to paint in oils and to scuba dive, and it all comes together in my art." Margo paints metaphorical dreamscapes inspired from underwater sights and her personal struggles and emotions. Each painting twists and floats, pushes and pulls without gravity in a vivid weightlessness, submerged in a colorful place as recognizable as it is strange.

SEE THE EXHIBIT ONLINE

SHOW OPENING &
ARTIST RECEPTION:
Thursday, September 1st
5PM - 11PM

Exhibit continues through
October 8th, 2005.

CLOSING PARTY:
October 6th, 5 - 9PM

Photography Influenced. Margo takes underwater photographs as she glides by a shipwreck, school of sharks or an octopus. She also loves to photograph the other divers and later in the studio, these photographs turn to paint and become important parts of her paintings. Margo began scuba diving in 2002 and fell in love with the sport. Instantly she fell in love with the other world, below the surface of the sea. The physical feelings when floating weightless, the sounds of your breathing and the bubbles influence her painting. Many of the strange and beautiful animals that she encounters while diving excite and become her artistic muse.

Margo’s paintings often mix together realistic underwater scenes with a nude woman with long red hair. The woman is sometimes bound or surrounded by her protecting companions, the fish; sometimes the woman is half invisible or swimming happily like a mermaid near a shipwreck like the one Margo visited in Cyprus.

“Since my work usually begins as an inspiration, idea or just a "flash" it generates an instant desire and need to paint. Sometimes I envision an image of a finished piece and work towards that. Most of the time, just a sense or a feeling is my motivation for starting and then the painting seems to take on a life of its own. It evolves and changes, almost as if it is telling me what to do, therefore the result, is not always what I expected to happen. My best art happens when I surrender myself to the creative process without worrying what the finished painting will look like.”

“One of the hardest things about the art that I do is what to say when people want to know the meaning of one of my paintings. I would much rather allow people to draw their own conclusions, come up with their own story - personalize it. If I can get the viewer to do that, if I can get each person to interpret the images in their own way, then I feel I have accomplished something really special. It is a piece of me - my soul, my vision, left vulnerable & exposed for everyone to see and to decide for themselves what it means to them.”

SEE THIS EXHIBIT ONLINE

SEE THIS EXHIBIT ONLINE

More about Margo Cavis