My call to painting came at age 37, after two degrees and several careers. I have been painting professionally since 2002. Painting as an American painter, while paying homage to Hopper, Katz, Warhol, and Thiebaud, I try to find my own way. I am a professional oil painter, honest to what I believe and see as true. My paintings are direct and applied primarily with pallet knife. A part of this direct approach is making my painting a painting and not an illusion, recording or reporting of reality. I strive for believability not reality. The quality and use of the paint is as interesting to me as the image itself. While painting, I run up against the edges of the rectangle but I use the pressure of edges to hold my composition on to the rectangle but the paint wraps the edges. The edges press the viewer to stay within that rectangle. I begin creating with a subject. Often I am asked: "How do you pick your subject?" The answer is: "I don't pick my subject: my subject picks me." My subjects are often simple objects and scenes, emerging from my daily life of looking. It's the image that won't leave my mind until it is on a canvas. A "casual" subject always has a formal power of color, shape and form but it also has an emotional or metaphorical power. I attempt to communicate, reveal and to make others understand, what I see and feel. Through painting, I want my personal and visual experience will connect to the experience the viewer brings to the painting. It is in this that a painting becomes more than pigment on panel and the painting gains its power and life beyond its parts. In today's daily over-looked, over-stimulated life, where people always seem to be living and rushing into the next moment, one goal is to get people to stop, be still, to look and be moved before rushing on. As Franz Kline said: "If you do it with meaning, it will mean much." I stop work on a painting when it makes me smile. For me, there is no one goal to this process of making art. I want painting to take me where it will take me without any preconceptions and classifications. One painting leads on to another idea and an idea will lead on to another painting. And so it goes. Blog?  Did I hear you ask if I had a painting blog?  Happy you asked!  See mariandioguardi.blogspot.com ... Notable Honors 2008 41st Annual Plymouth Juried Art Show, Second Place-Oil Painting, Plymouth MA 2008 Studio Visit Collection -Carl Betz, juror, Curator Emeritus, Rose Art Museum, Brandeis 2008 Concord Art Association-Nancy T Baldwin Drawing Award 2007 Newton Art Association Endowment Award - Second Place 2007 Newton Art Association Bonnar Award - Second place 2008, 2006, 2005 American Art Collector Juried Competition of New Work 2005 Newton Art Association - Bonnar Award – Third Place 2005 Newton Magazine, featured artist 2002 Newton Art Association Endowment Award - First Prize 2002 Duxbury Winter Competition, Juror’s Commendation Selected Exhibitions 2008 Sunlight, Laundry Lines and Life - solo show, Baak Gallery, Cambridge, MA 2008 Hanging Out in Venice, solo show, Rose Gallery Fine Art, Hudson NY 2008 Duxbury Winter Competition, The Art Complex Museum, Duxbury MA 2008 Concord Art Association Juried Show I & II, Concord, MA. Recipient of the Nancy T. Baldwin Award for Drawing 2007 Regional Contemporary Art Biennial, NH Institute of Art, Manchester NH 2007 Painting from Observation, Newton Free Library, Newton MA 2007 Immersed in Italy: Off the Beaten Track - Brickbottom Gallery, Somerville MA 2007 Concord Art Association Annual Juried Show I & II , Concord MA 2006 Concord Art Association Annual Juried Show I & II , Concord MA 2006 Roddy Competition - Concord Art Association, Concord MA 2006 Duxbury Winter Competition - Art Complex Museum, Duxbury MA 2006 Winter Show –Rose Art Gallery, Hudson NY 2005 Concord Art Association Annual Juried Show 1 – Concord MA 2005 Living Masters - Paradigm Fine Art, Taos NM 2004 Roddy Competition - Concord Art Association, Concord MA 2004 Art on Ledoux Street - Paradigm Fine Art, Taos NM 2004 Newton Art Association Annual Awards Show - Newton Free Library, Newton MA 2004 Insider Art, Nancy Cobean Art Consultant - Westchester NY 2003 Artists at the Villa – Newton Free Library Show, Newton MA 2002 Duxbury Winter Competition - Art Complex Museum, Duxbury MA 2002 Small Works - Soprafina Gallery, Harrison Ave, Boston MA 2002 Newton Art Association Annual Awards Show - Newton Free Library, Newton MA Professional Affiliations 2008 - 2002 Project Laundry List member and 2008 ”Hero” promoting laundry line beauty 2008 - 2005 Invited guest critic at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, Cambridge MA 2008 - 2006 Represented by Gallery 333, North Falmouth Ma 2008 - 2006 Represented by Rose Gallery, Hudson NY 2007 - 2003 Contributing artist to the Art Connection, donating art to non-profit organizations 2007 - 2005 Mentor, Lesley University-Boston Art Institute 2008 - 2004 Member of the Concord Art Association 2008 - 2004 Member of the Newton Art Association 2006 - 2004 Co-president of the Newton Art Association 2006 - 2004 Represented by Paradigm Gallery, Taos NM 2006 - 2005 Represented by Eisenhauer Gallery, Edgartown, Martha’s Vineyard MA 2004 - 2003 Represented by Alpers Fine Art Gallery, Andover MA 2004 - 2002 Founding member & 04 Chairperson, Newton Open Studios, Newton MA 2002 Represented by Soprafina Gallery, Boston MA

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