Maggie Galloway
Is an Artist based in Chicago
Maggie Galloway started painting in 1988 after a friend gave her a set of paint brushes during a trip in Italy. When her sister saw her talent she encouraged Maggie to pursue art further.
Since then, Maggie has studied 15 years at the School of The Art Institute of Chicago. After her time in Chicago, Maggie has been studying art each spring for the past twenty years at the University of Tulsa.
Maggie's style is abstract realism and intuitive expressionism characterized by vivid colors. Her work includes portraits, landscapes, still life and several series.
Series
Art Grief Therapy
Death of Her Mother and Husband
Baseball
Family Stories
Biblical Images
Dinner with My Enemies from Psalm 23:5
The Garden of Eden
Noah and the Flood
Education
ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO '91 - '06
Professors: Jose Andreu, Helen Oh, Rick Hungerford, Barbara Cooper, Tony Phillips, Ben Whitehouse, Betsy Rupprecht, Karl Wirsum, Ginny Sykes
Chicago, IL
UNIVERSITY OF TULSA '99 - '20
Professor: Mark Lewis, MFA Yale
Tulsa, OK
Artist Statement
I discovered that I could be a person who could create art serendipitously. On my first trip to Italy, while in my early thirties, a close friend bought me paints and brushes. I drew in a way that expressed the feeling of the place. Though I was employed as a documentary film-maker in Chicago, I had never thought of myself as an artist, and at that stage of my life, I had no training.
From this discovery with paint, I quickly followed up with training at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and then at the University of Tulsa. Painting archetypes- portraits of people, biblical characters, death, motherhood-- the emotions were what charged the work. Throughout, I chose not to paint photo realistically but rather use vivid colors as a way to represent the work. Even though I spent 10 years copying paintings at the Art Institute of Chicago as part of my training, I depend on my intuition to guide my work.
I describe my own style of painting as “Intuitive Expressionism”. Tracing the influences in my life that have formed this style, I think of first, the sense of being an “outsider”. Growing up in an affluent suburb of Chicago, I saw my parents, immigrants from Europe (Czechoslovakia), misunderstood and sometimes ignored because of their accents.
My art reflects my experience in creating documentary films. It led me to prefer a style of painting that conveys a sense of movement and action, rather than being static. Another formative experience, was the time I spent in Japan as a young college-age person, and I think that experience honed my skills of reducing things to their essence, as Japanese art does.