Australian Art Collector
Issue 36 April -June 2006 feature article
Marise Maas 'Animal Magnetism'
by Ashley Crawford pp112 - 119.

Working from her purpose built studio at her home in Melbourne, Marise Maas successfully juggles a rigorous painting practice with her new role as a mother of two. “Having children makes life more precious and meaningful. The world is starting all over again, right before your eyes.” This act of seeing and appreciating the everyday has been a central theme throughout Maas’ painting career.

It is within the rhythmic and gestural nature of Marise Maas’ work that her ethos of pure observation becomes most evident. Informed by a meditative response to the experience of the mundane, Maas refuses to quantify the meaning and purpose of her images. Rather, like the works themselves, the artist allows her examination of form and matter to filter into the structure of paint and line. Citing such masters as Susan Rothenberg as her influences, Maas creates pictorial planes that defy perspective and yet adhere to a compositional structure informed by her formal training as a printmaker.

There is a sense of joy and celebration in Maas' work, her lines responding to the essence of a thing rather than to its implied meaning or value. Discarded tin cans or baking tins carry the same weight and value as a wild flower or a bird wing. This will be Marise Maas’ sixth exhibition at Flinders Lane Gallery. Her works are in numerous major collections nationally and internationally.