The ARTIST

M Chatfield (Maureen Chatfield) is a contemporary artist whose body of work is a unique blend of New York Abstract Expressionism and Bay Area Figurative painting. 

Her works are never premeditated; instead, she allows the color harmonies, receding and overlapping lines, and delicate balance of amorphous shapes to emerge while she paints. Her works are intuitive responses to the myriad forces that shape her life—emotions and memories that translate into color.  Her work process is one of constant experiment and change- building layers of form and color, revealing the underlying pentimento.

Chatfield has studied at numerous institutions including the Art Students League, New York, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Fashion Institute of Technology, New York and Hunter College, New York.

She has painted consistently since childhood, beginning with oils, and is currently working in acrylics on large pieces enabling rapid layering while maintaining fresh color. Her paintings are not planned, but discovered, an evolution that is exciting and invigorating.

Her Non Objective  "Abstract" work is more interior, emerging directly from what is in her head, while "Landscape" arise from direct experience—what she sees in nature, captured by her internal camera and explosively transformed. The "Out of My Mind"  work focuses on direct experience as well but of a human nature- relationships- childhood memories, family outings, forming a body of work that transcends topicality and embraces an ever-expanding approach to art that is cathartic and reflective of her desire to spread joy and beauty through the transformative power of the creative process.

M Chatfield is currently teaching the "Modern Landscape" at the Hunterdon Art Museum in Clinton, New Jersey and lives and works in Tewksbury, New Jersey. 

Inspiration
M Chatfield began detailed drawing at an early age and at 14 received oil painting and color theory instruction. This early exposure to painting and comprehension of color is evident in her fearless thought pleasing palette.

For her Sargent would define economy of stroke and mastery of composition.  Manet and Whistler - the magnificent tertiary palette.

Picasso, explosive line-work.

As musicians employed minor chords to reproduce melancholy so Van Gogh used color with precise intentionality to express emotion as no one before. 

When Chatfield moved into abstraction she was heavily influenced by Gorky, Guston, Diebenkorn, Kline, dekooning, Rothko and de stëal