Wedding Ritual #5: Maria Beadell

Maria Beadell 

is a self-taught painter based in London. Her artwork is rich with symbolism, often featuring figurative portraits in fantasy, macabre and surreal settings. She describes being on a spiritual journey, which she finds takes her painting more and more into the world of the fantastical and mythic - animal/human hybrids, gods, goddesses, angels and spirits.

Beadell cites Frida Kahlo, Salvador Dali, Hieronymous Bosch, Jake and Dinos Chapman, Kandinsky and Alberto Vargas among her influences.

In terms of process, she works mainly with oils on canvas or board, recently experimenting with mixed media.  Typically, a preliminary portrait idea is sketched out, then enriched with material from photographs, still life sketches or her imagination. She says, "I try to create bold, visually arresting images with bright uses of warm colour, including reds, golds and deep blues."

Here are Maria Beadell's ritual elements, in her own words:

Something Old

Untitled - oil pastels on paper, 1994

"This was a school piece I completed at age 11. I don't remember the exact assignment brief, but it's interesting that I chose to draw a Boudicca/goddess-like woman astride a stallion, bounding through fantasy landscape. I was always interested in fantasy art and literature, and after 26 years, I am returning to this theme."

Something New

Breaking the Cords - acrylic on board, 2020

"Completed during lockdown. A piece long in the making! I have recently struggled intensely with letting go of situations and people that no longer serve me. I promised myself that once I’d broken free of those ‘cords’, I would paint a piece to symbolically represent my new found freedom, and to encourage me on my way. This is a highly personal piece, a spiritual painting that nods to my faith and the awakening journey I am on."

Something Borrowed

"A past life reading recently informed me that I have spent many past lives as an early Christian nun (one, incidentally, at. Glastonbury) and that I was a harpist, among other things. Inspired by this, I started listening to medieval folk music and came across 'Miri it is while sumer ilast'  - England's oldest known song. I thought it was hauntingly beautiful and sent me into a meditative reverie… it’s also great painting music. My favourite version is this one recorded by Ensemble Belladonna."

Something Blue

"The Afghanistan war was in full swing and Bush was in the White House when I started painting this, a giant phallus instead of the Washington Monument as a way to express my displeasure and frustration with the testosterone-fuelled macho leading governments and their reckless attitudes to war.  In ancient times people worshipped the phallus as a fertility symbol too, so this is also a reminder of our contemporary worship of the patriarchy."

-

You can see more of, and purchase, Maria's work at her online gallery and shop.
Mark Zuckerberg also regularly publishes updates about her work on each of his websites - by which I simply mean, you can follow her on Facebook and Instagram.

-

Wedding Ritual #6 will be conducted by Jovana Backovic.