Mariangela
Artist Bio
Charlotte-based artist Mariangela Rinaldi was raised in Queens, NY where she was acutely shy as a child. She had a heightened, almost visceral awareness of her surroundings, and found solace in painting and drawing.
She studied Design and Environmental Analysis to bridge these sensitivities, and earned her Bachelor’s degree from Cornell University. Her early career was in corporate design and workplace strategies consultancy in New York and Boston.
Mariangela was ultimately drawn back to fine art and what she refers to as her authentic creative voice - capturing the human form as subject matter. She prefers creating from a live model and is currently experimenting with layering multiple figure studies in her work. Her mediums are predominantly acrylics, charcoal, soft pastels, and watercolor.
Mariangela originally studied figure drawing at Fortman Studio in Florence, Italy. She later studied under acclaimed artists domestically and abroad. They include nationally recognized artist Andy Braitman in Charlotte; night scene and landscape painting under award-winning plein air painter Carl Bretzke; contemporary portraiture with multiple residency and fellowship-recipient Felicia Van Bork, and watercolor with renowned Canadian-based artists Carolyn Gavin and Helen Dardik.
She has exhibited widely throughout the Carolinas including The Mint Museum Uptown and Cain Center for the Arts.
Artist Statement
I’ve been told I see things differently. I believe I do.
Though I’ve always painted and drawn, it was not until I studied figure drawing that my creative voice truly came alive. From the first class, it was as if I had been speaking a foreign language my whole life and was finally able to communicate in my native voice.
I eagerly honed my own figurative style, primarily using charcoal and soft pastel. With vine charcoal, I learned how to make broad sweeping marks, indicate shadows with great ease, and convey muscle mass in a single gesture. Using the same medium, I instinctively created varied lines - delicate, crisp, or broken. I would imply detail without being fussy.
I then challenged myself to develop further restraint in my mark-making. This is most compelling when I begin with a semi-transparent acrylic wash on heavyweight paper. Next, I use only a single light and single dark soft pastel. I make as few marks as possible, allowing the figure to emerge from the mid-toned ground.
Over time, I turned to acrylic paint for its versatility and permanence. My focus began to shift toward life vignettes - intimate scenes that capture someone in a fleeting, candid moment. I use the subject’s pose and context clues of the environment to suggest the emotional undercurrent of the scene. I grew to become increasingly inspired by the interplay of person, place, and time. No matter the location, this clarity of sight is most striking in moments of observed innocence. To me, children playing in the sand and surf appear guileless and a bride is most beautiful when she thinks no one is looking.
The goal behind my series, Evocative Travel Memories, is not to merely depict persons, villages, or landscapes. I strive to convey the emotional resonance of a locale. This could not be achieved by solely using the tools of color, composition and scale. For me, light as a construct is the most telling indicator in any scene; the color of sunlight is warmer and more saturated in Tuscany, and a winter dusting of snow creates an almost silver aura in the Slovakian landscape. I focus on effectively capturing these intangible qualities of light. Only by adding them could I hope to evoke a visceral connection to the time and place from which a painting was conceived.
My creative voice is now, once again, most authentically expressed when capturing the human form. I work predominantly in acrylics, charcoal, soft pastels, watercolor and ink. I prefer working from a live model and with variety in age, gender, heritage, and structure of the human form. I am currently exploring the layering of multiple figure studies in a composition.
Through painting and drawing, I seek to share moments of human connection and emotional resonance with my viewers. It is my hope that I may do so by conveying the visual and emotional beauty I see in this world.
For more information find my CV here
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