Maureen Mace

Maureen’s paintings are about colour, detail and ideas and tell stories that can be magical and surreal. She loves dark blue, night skies with large shining moons and paints intricate details with miniature brushes including areas of millefleur – ‘a thousand flowers’ to describe the patterns and backgrounds in old tapestries.

After studying Visual Communication at Wolverhampton Art College, Maureen has always been employed in the art industry: first as a graphic designer and illustrator and finally as an art teacher. Throughout her career she has painted and exhibited her work. She regularly exhibits with Birmingham Open Studios and is represented by Byard Art in Cambridge and Lux Gallery in Birmingham. Her work has sold to America, Canada, Australia as well as Europe.

Maureen always heads first to the older works in any art museum to enjoy the paintings, tapestries and manuscripts from the medieval period, loving the gold leaf, the people, imaginary animals and the humour in the work from this period. A few years ago, she became a reader at the Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, which has a fine collection of North European illuminated manuscripts and goes to draw there regularly, a real honour as she is allowed to touch (carefully) beautiful books from 700 years ago.

Her oil paintings take a long time to produce as they are built of many layers with tiny details. She works on two or three paintings at the same time. The subjects are very often buildings and usually include trees: her large tree series which includes copper or gold leaf and thousands of individually painted leaves with objects nestling amongst them are very popular. Many are made into prints and greeting cards which can be bought at Lux Gallery or from her website www.maureenmace.co.uk.

An avid urban sketcher, Maureen loves going out to draw on the streets or in the museums with friends, you may have seen her! Maureen loves the buildings, hills and green landscapes of Birmingham and is embarking on a series of paintings which represent the city.