As an artist, I draw my inspiration from nature and the balance between color, light and shadow. My work evolves organically, painting from memory of places I have visited and that have left an impression in my mind. I work purposefully placing one color next to another to create the feeling of a landscape or seascape while portraying the ephemeral nature of sensory memory. My oil paintings illustrate my interpretation of the physical world through color, shape and composition.
As an artist, I draw my inspiration from nature and the balance between color, light and shadow. My work evolves organically, painting from memory of places I have visited and that have left an impression in my mind. I work purposefully placing one color next to another to create the feeling of a landscape or seascape while portraying the ephemeral nature of sensory memory. My oil paintings illustrate my interpretation of the physical world through color, shape and composition.
MEET THE ARTIST
Shelly worked for many years as a designer in an internationally recognized advertising agency. Throughout her career as a designer, Shelly continued to study color theory, which is now relevant in her paintings.
BIO
Shelly Madruga is a contemporary painter. She works intuitively placing one hue next to another, cultivating a strong sense of color and balance to create harmonious paintings. She lives and works in San Diego, California.
GALLERIES
City Haus Chicago, 2024
Gallery Diderot, 2024 Permanent Collection
Shoppe Amber Interiors, 2022 - 2024
Marin, Calabasas, Pacific Palisades, Newport Beach locations
featuring four collections, totaling 28 paintings
Gallery Diderot, 2022 Permanent Collection
GRANTS
Denis Diderot Artist Grant in 2024, 2022
RESIDENCIES
Chateau d’Orquevaux, France 2024, 2022
MEDIA
HGTV Hot Properties show
Several paintings featured in a high-end home design episode
ARTIST STATEMENT
In my work, I create large scale paintings using fast, flowing marks and layers of grounded tone upon tone.
I explore gestural movement to create assertive abstract artwork. Inky tones and earthy colors fill the canvas with textured, transparent layers scraping away to reveal what was once impressed upon the canvas. A sweeping score. A flash of a stroke made with a carpenter’s trowel. A deceptively simple composition. My work is bold and unapologetic. Aggressively calm. Dynamic. Honest.
Rejecting physical form and influenced by Brancusi’s geometric shapes, I confidently place one hue
next to another to pull the viewer into the painting.
My work is both urgent and quiet at the same time.
A dichotomy of feelings. A layering of emotion.
