Maro Gorky

Maps of Feelings

INTRODUCTION

I’m not interested in the ‘gaze.’ I don’t want to be looked at. I want to hide behind my paintings. I want to be invisible – the ultimate ambition. There’s charm in being invisible. What women do, has to be subliminal. Not bliminal, like men. I want to be transparent, to live between the walls.

I remember my father’s studio in Connecticut. There was a pencil sharpening machine which fascinated me, because it produced the most beautiful rosettes. I thought the shavings from the big block-plane he used for straightening planks were Goldilock’s curls. Matta and Breton came to the house once and spent the afternoon with us. They showed me lots of tricks to do with pencil and paper. Exquisite corpses. How to make silhouettes with torn paper. You use the torn paper like a template, smudging the edges with coloured crayons, and chains of paper dolls cut with nail scissors. I remember cutting out hearts from coloured paper and sticking them on sheets of paper, listening to the gramophone – a box with little men inside.

My childhood wasn’t really controlled, or not controlled in the way I wanted it to be. I retreated into my cutouts and crayon drawings, which I could control.

I carry my father’s village inside me: the lake, the intrigues. I can recognize it immediately. It’s not Manhattan, even though I was born there. I recognise it in the background of Byzantine icons. With icons, first came encaustic, then egg tempera. The tradition survived, and the rocks of Mount Sinai reappear in Cretan icons painted a thousand years later.

I’m a sixties artist. Bright colours. Acid greens. Orange. Acidity. Love of nature and distrust of politics. I wanted to live in the country in a William Morrissy

way. Withdraw into nature. Today, I’m overcome by the green tidal wave of spring. A tractor in the distance makes the same hum as the bees in the almond blossom. A man pruning the olive trees is undressing them as vigorously as if he were plucking dead chickens. The purple Alium I transplanted years ago has spread, the carnations from Afghanistan are also on the move. Self-seeded fennel is putting up tufts all over the place. The Euphorbia is doing much too well, a purge will have to take place.

The artist’s line is short-hand. It’s a summary.

There are two ways of making lines. The first involves a thin strip of colour, a path between the shapes, a guide. The second involves the meeting of shapes: the vibrant line between the colours. Land and water – the sea’s edge dividing two masses. To create a melodious composition, you make a cat’s cradle of lines. This compositional structure is attached to the four edges of the paper, the boundary.

Paintings require many layers. Goauches are immediate. It’s the technique Matta taught me when I was three and a half. It’s automatic. Choose the colours closest to your feelings and the lines closet to your inclination. I feel so happy afterwards. There is no need for words. Afterwards, I don’t think of anything. You become out of your mind. It’s meditation. It’s gardening. It’s prayer. I don’t know what I’ve done after a painting is finished. My life has had a lot of disruption, painting is my retreat.

Maro Gorky, February 2025

Autumn Trees, 2014 powder and acrylic on paper 48 × 33 cm

Ploughed Fields, 1987

gouache on paper

31 × 41 cm

Chinese Landscape, 1986

egg tempera on paper

30 × 40 cm

Autumn Flowerbed, 2013 pigment and casein on paper

50 × 70 cm

45 × 61 cm

Naxos Highland, 1988

gouache on paper

Path to Vagliali, 1986

gouache on paper

45 × 61 cm

watercolour on paper

61 × 46 cm

Hilside Naxos, 1987

2013 powder and acrylic on paper 70 × 50 cm

Glade,

Cypress in a Summer Landscape, 2004

egg tempera on paper

56 × 76 cm

Summer Flowers, 2013 pigment and casein on paper 70 × 50 cm

Night Landscape II, 2006

watercolour on paper 12 × 18 cm

Night Landscape, 2002

watercolour on paper 12 × 18 cm

Pine Tree II, 2015 oil on paper

51 × 39.5 cm

Autumn Landscape, 2022

gouache on paper

51.2 × 66.2 cm

gouache on paper

51 × 36 cm

Calatrana, 2001

Flowering Cypress, 2012 powder and acrylic on paper

50 × 70 cm

Burial Rings, 1988

gouache on paper 46 × 61 cm

Cycladic

Autumn, 2010

casein and powder paint on paper 92 × 62 cm

Arbia In Winter, 1986

egg tempera on paper 26 × 36 cm

Evening Landscape, Paros, 1986

gouache on paper

36 × 51 cm

Three Cypress, 2014 powder and acrylic on paper 20 × 25 cm

watercolour on paper

31 × 41 cm

Pruned Tree, 1997

Pine in Summer Landscape, 2003

gouache on paper

35.5 × 25.5 cm

66.2 × 51.2 cm

Summer Flowers, 2013

gouache on paper

gouache on paper

51.2 × 66.2 cm

Tuscan Landscape, 2009

Autumn Landscape, 2017

gouache on paper

66.2 × 51.2 cm

Summer Night, 2016

100 × 120 cm

Oil on canvas

100 × 120 cm

Tuscan Landscape I, 2016

Oil on canvas

2014

Summer,

oil on canvas

130 × 100 cm

MARO GORKY

Maro Gorky was born in New York in 1943, elder daughter of the distinguished American painter of Armenian origin, Arshile Gorky. Her first lessons in painting took place with her father as a child. After her father’s death, Maro Gorky’s family moved to Europe and she went to schools in France, America, Spain, Italy and England.

Gorky took her Baccalauréat at the French Lycée in London in 1960 and then studied at the Slade School of Art in London 1961-1966, where she graduated with a B.A. in Fine Art in 1965. In 1967 she married the artist Matthew Spender and the following year they moved to Italy. They have lived in the Tuscan countryside ever since. They have two daughters, born in the early seventies, and four grandchildren. Gorky began to exhibit her work in the early eighties and has held exhibitions in London, Milan, Venice, Florence, Volterra, Pietrasanta, Carrara and Los Angeles.

EXHIBITIONS

1982 London, The Wraxall Gallery

1986 Passau, Die Galerie am Steinweg

1988 London, The Albemarle Gallery

1989 London, Sarah Long, Art International

1990 Long & Ryle, London

1991 Galleria Daverio, Milan

1992 Long & Ryle, London

1994 Long & Ryle, London

1997 Long & Ryle, London

1999 Carrara, ex Banca d’Italia,

2000 Venezia, Galleria Percorsi d’Arte 90 London, Long & Ryle, Art International Pietrasanta, Chiesa di Sant’Agostino Firenze, Accademia delle Arti del Disegno

2001 Volterra, Logge del Palazzo Pretorio Carrara, Centro Espositivo delle Erbe

2002 London, Long & Ryle, Art International

2003 London, Long & Ryle, Art International

2004 Los Angeles, Silvia Bezdikian Fine Arts

2005 Massa, Castello Malaspina

2006 London, Long & Ryle, Art International New York, Salander-O’Reilly Galleries

2008 Museo Civico Archeologico, Fiesole

2009 London, Long & Ryle, Art International

2012 London, Long & Ryle, Art International

2013 Spineto, Castello a Monte

2015 London, Long & Ryle, Art International

2023 London, Long & Ryle, Art International

2024 Archivio Lante, Bagnaia, Viterbo

2025 London, Saatchi Gallery, Flowers: Flora in Contemporary Art & Culture

London, Long & Ryle, Maps of Feelings

London, Saatchi Gallery, The Thread of Colour

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1989 Raffaele De Grada, ‘Corriere della Sera,’ Milan, 30 April 1989, (review).

1991 Giorgio Soavi, Nove artisti contemporanei appartati in Etruria, Galleria Daverio, Milan, (catalogue essay).

1997 John Russell Taylor, ‘The Times,’ London, 28 April 1997, (review).

1999 Anna Vittoria Laghi, Impronte, Carrara, ex Banca d’Italia, (catalogue essay).

2000 John Russell Taylor, ‘The Times,’ London, 10 May 2000, (review).

Ada Masoero, ‘Il Sole 24 Ore,’ Milan, 30 July 2000, (review).

Giuseppe Cordoni, La poetica del colore, Venezia, Galleria Percorsi d’Arte, (catalogue essay).

Nicola Micieli, ‘Una terra, una casa, due artisti,’ Accademia delle Arti del Disegno, Florence, (catalogue essay).

2001 Patrizia Cavalli, ‘Perché Maro dipinge?’ Volterra, Logge del Palazzo Pretorio, (catalogue essay).

Giandomenico Semeraro, ‘Le forme della luce,’ Volterra, Logge del Palazzo Pretorio, (catalogue essay).

2004 Hunter Drohojowska-Philp, ‘Los Angeles Times,’ 20 December, 2004, (review).

Albert Boime, Maro Gorky: From another place, Silva Bezdikian Fine Art, Los Angeles, (catalogue essay).

Matthew Spender, To Be and to Happen, Silva Bezdikian Fine Art, Los Angeles, (catalogue essay).

2005 Claudio Giumelli, Maro Gorky il fascino discreto del colore, Castello Malaspina, Massa Carrara, (catalogue essay).

Mara Amorevole, ‘La Repubblica,’ 7 August 2005, (review).

2006 Bernardo Bertolucci, ‘To honour Maro Gorky,’ Salander-O’Reilly Galleries, New York, (catalogue preface).

Roberta Smith, ‘Maro Gorky, Paintings,’ ‘New York Times,’ December 29 2006, Salander-O’Reilly Galleries, (review).