Artist Statement:

I am fascinated with line - - with what a line, a gesture can make, can convey…..that a mark can reveal an enormous amount of energy and chaos…..or quiet meditativeness or melancholy.  I am more intrigued with being able to see the process of a drawing through all of the mark making and seeing the energy in those gestures rather than a full dense piece of artwork where mark making is no longer traceable. 

I mostly work on paper with objects such as pencils, charcoal, sticks with ink or paint.  I like to begin with a particular gesture that then leads me organically into an idea.

About:

Mara Leimanis-Ricard was born in 1971 in the United States, of Latvian refugee parents that fled from war torn Latvia during World War II.  Mara obtained a Bachelor of Fine Arts from San Francisco State University and also took Figurative Painting at the San Francisco Art Institute.  Mara worked in the Fine Arts for 13 years, first in San Francisco and then later for several years in New York. She worked at Pace Prints Gallery in New York for 10 years, as their registrar for their contemporary print department.  While working at the gallery, she continued to draw and paint.  Since then, she has become a mother and has always tried to find time to make work and take on visual freelance projects. Over the last 10 years, Mara has also given creatively in various ways to her daughter’s Waldorf School in Brooklyn.  Mara has lived and worked in Brooklyn, New York for over 25 years, however she is currently residing in Barcelona, Spain with her husband and her energetic daughter.