Welcome, Margaret Rose Vendryes!

After working my way across the stepping-stones towards success in academia (I was a tenured professor of art history), I paused long enough to rethink my direction. I have always been an artist first. Painting and assemblage is where I live to the fullest. But, my professional experiences before turning to the studio full time made me who I am today. Because of my years of studying art history, I am aware of the ordeals I will surely have to shoulder as well as the rewards of going forward despite them.
Like many artists of African descent before me, I am inspired by black magnificence in a global art arena that fails to recognize black aesthetic power. For my current project, African Divas, my models are actually found objects:  Forgotten LP jackets. Lifting beautiful black women’s images out of mass reproduced marketing environments and transforming them into beautiful, large format, unique paintings has been work, yes, but wrapped in pure pleasure. Here, I pay homage to dazzling African talents.
Capturing a face and body language in oil on canvas represents more to me than rendering a likeness.
My bloodlines are diverse, but it is my modicum of African ancestry that drives me to be present through art. I have spent decades learning about Africa and its many nations through scholarship, travel and collecting African art. Like many people of the African Diaspora, I will never know my African ancestors. But, I commune with them through art so seductive to me that I wonder why it took me so long to finally focus on this studio work. The provocative, aggressive, and sensual beauty of the arts born of Africa are at the center of my current practice and my self.

www.margaretrosevendryes.com