Playing with Shadows and Memories: The Art of Maralyn Menghini
Dimensional art comes to life in the hands of Maralyn Menghini
When Maralyn Menghini creates her dimensional art, she loves to explore the way the light looks as it dances on each oar, shell, or flower, to expose shades of color that shift with the day. She creates all this textured beauty in an almost exclusively white color palette.
“Art is exploration,” says Maralyn. “Art is seeing things intimately and making a judgment about how it looks to you.”
Maralyn has always been drawn to art. As a child she was surrounded by it. Her father would bring work home from McGraw Hill and create complex illustrations while she and her siblings would watch.
By her own admission, she found art school boring, but was motivated to paint, explore, and follow her creative curiosity. She began taking her paintings to art shows where she was often the only female artist and would get pulled aside and admonished for trying to show her work. There was no stopping Maralyn who persisted with her art, found success, and opened her own gallery with her husband and business partner, Jay Bould.
These days, they are focusing on Maralyn’s dimensional work, which has been warmly received across New England and beyond. In fact, she was profiled in the latest edition of Cape Cod Art.
Maralyn and Jay are based on Long Island, New York, but are often in Chatham, visiting friends and rediscovering the coastal landscape that continues to inspire much of Maralyn’s art.
In her statement sea life panels, Maralyn sculpts sea creatures from clay, arranging and rearranging each element with an expert eye until she has what looks like an effortless creation.
Her love of flowers, and years spent in floral design, inspired Maralyn to create flowers and vines out of clay.
What began as jewelry and wedding bouquets progressed into floral panels and mirrors. Flowers are wired in place to create even more dimension and give an enchanted garden feel to each piece.
Maralyn’s approach also marries beauty and function.
This statement oar paddle mirror evokes coastal New England, gives a feeling of circular movement, all while incorporating a functional mirror that doubles the depth of the art.
Her dory wreath, assembled from miniature boats, also appears to be moving, floating on a wall as if it were the surface of the water on a warm July day.
For Maralyn, art “can take you away and help you remember.”
When you see one of her pieces and it sparks a childhood memory or reminds you of a magical summer gone by, then the art is speaking to you in the same spirit in which it was created, capturing the beauty, light, and shadows of a sun-drenched, moment in time.
To purchase a piece from Maralyn’s collection, visit The Drawing Room in downtown New Bedford or online at anthif.com/shop.