Mary Moore Soniat's Art

Mary has been painting for over 40 years.  By her own admission, she is self taught using various art books.  She paints in both oils and acrylics and enjoys three distinct styles of painting, i.e., classic, abstract and a third which she calls "essence."   The essence style is a style she developed all on her own over the past few years and she calls it that because all you see in the portrait is the essence of the subject as captured by her eye and mind.  So I initially grouped her paintings into these three galleries.  After the gallery project got started, we added a fourth category for "Dolls," a fifth one for "Iris's Drama," and a final one for her "Self Portraits."

She likes to tell people that her classic and essence style are her "prose," whereas her abstract paintings are her poetry.  As you open each gallery, if you will click on the first picture, the gallery will present the pictures in slide show format one picture at a time.  I have posted a copy of her professional biography on her Profile Page.  Be sure to check it out and don't be surprised if you happen to see a picture of a bunny as well!  Who knew !!!

The following paragraph is excerpted out of Mary's Facebook page as she comments on a very recent project having to do with portraits of the children killed in the Newtown, Connecticut school tragedy.  It says a lot about Mary's character and heart and I thought you might enjoy reading about it here before you view her various pieces of art on our website.

"Months ago, I saw a report on the CBS News about what happened at Sandy Hook Elementary School and felt so saddened. I took photos of each child with my cell phone as shown on the news. I felt I wanted to reach out to the families. One mother was interviewed and said she kissed her child's photograph every night and morning. That image haunted me because I believe that a portrait can shine beyond a photograph. So, I set out on my mission to paint individual portraits of each child, the teacher and the principal. Each painting was painted in oils and measured 5" x 7". It took me about two months to finish; I finished early in June. I painted a total of 22 portraits. I was in contact with a Donation Team in Newtown and told them of my plan. I shipped the portraits to the Team and they will distribute the portraits to the families. I will not show the portraits out of respect to the families because they have been through so much. The families will remain in my prayers."

As Mary and I worked on this project for the past several months, we developed a friendship that neither of us enjoyed during our high school years.  She surprised me with an "essence" portrait of me taken from a Facebook family portrait.  Thank you, Mary, for you generosity!  

For those of you who are interested, you can see more of Mary's work on her Facebook page under the name of "Mary Moore Soniat."  Enjoy !!!!

John B.

6/8/13