Pua Maunu :

Pua's specialty is abstract landscapes, which combine her background in abstract painting with landscape subjects.

Pua was our guest for the May 2008 First Friday event.

Events Info

Pua Maunu, Guest Artist

We live in an abstract environment full of starkness, contradictions, wonder and delight. My May 2008 exhibition at Annie Kaill's featureed a collection of abstract landscapes, which merge my abstract background with plein aire landscapes.

I learned to paint from Carlos Loarca, an abstract muralist in San Francisco, who taught me to see our environment as a series of lines, intersections, layers and light. I only started painting landscapes in 1999 and have been on a path applying abstract principles to landscape paintings.

The very nature of our abstract environment demands we synthesize this information very quickly, otherwise, how could we appreciate the way light chooses to intensify one area of the landscape with a color so intense it is unattainable, but not another? Or windblown patterns of dark and light across the water? Or lines and shadows of reflections on ice?

Several paintings in this show come close to achieving abstraction. For instance, in “Haines to Canada”, there are lines and movement of lines that give an impression of moving past trees. “Amalga Essence” portrays no distinction between sky land and water, but in its most synthesized form, this is what it is. In “Perseverance Snow Gulch” I have stylized the abstractness of the landscape. This is painted from a smaller study I painted last summer in a workshop led by Kes Woodward.

It has been quite a wonderful unveiling in merging the two styles. It is not a new idea as many artists have traveled this path. I find much joy in painting and will continue to explore the combination of the abstract and landscape styles.

Examples of Pua's work from the May 2008 exhibition at Annie Kaill's are shown below.