artist - bio

Contact Maria if you are interested in commissioning a work or having her exhibit in your gallery.

Maria Ingold specializes in watercolour and oils of landscapes, people and abstractions of life, as in her recent Portals series. This series is composed of 9 sculptural paintings. Each picture represents looking through something close up into the space beyond. She specially made the 15-inch square and 4 inch deep canvas to lend the paintings a sculptural quality as she paints the dimensions around the edges. This series was inspired by her painting Skylight of a skylight in a pub toilet in Glastonbury. Abstracted, it is has a beautiful dark sun quality. She has completed several commission pieces and exhibited in the USA.

She has been an artist since the age of 2 when she remembers drawing her first face on a portable chalkboard she had as a child. This moment stands out clearly in her mind, as she didn't understand why her family took it away from her and photographed it, not knowing until later that they realised at an early age she had a keen awareness of the world around her and how to represent it visually. She consistently stood out as one of the top artists throughout her school career and studied privately with Pat Beatty, her home town's top watercolourist.

Maria went on to study both Fine Arts and Computer Science at the University in New Mexico. Maria started her painting studies without awareness of much art history. When she was classified as an impressionist, she had to ask what that meant, much to her class' surprise. She later learnt about artists like Georgia O'Keefe who had been inspired by the New Mexico light. Finally, Maria experienced European art on an exchange course to England in the late 80s. It was this year abroad that inspired Maria to move to the UK a few years later with little except her car and her cat. Maria loves the history, culture and sense of humour here but does miss the New Mexico sun!

Maria has 22 years of experience across interactive multimedia, games, TV and film. She is also a technical consultant in video on demand, a TV and film judge for BAFTA, a coach in transformational growth and is publishing a novel.