Bio
"As a visual person having a wide scope of all visual angles allows for me to constantly examine ideas in new ways that allow for greater discovery and growth within myself and the work."
Angie Mason is a mid-career artist, born in Northern New Jersey and a graduate of Parsons School of Design in New York City. Her prolific visual career has crossed many creative boundaries. Having had solo exhibits in NY, Berlin Germany as well as having her artwork shown in galleries and museums all over the world in numerous group exhibitions as well as being published in several art books. She has also worked in the design world working in the toy and publishing industry.
Angie visually explores the darkness and light we face in life through the creation of character narrative works. Primarily she presents the work as paintings and drawings. Varied influences are found within her work ranging from such things as nature, love, relationships, dreams, memories, humor, loss and health to name a few.
These mixed influences cause a balance of light and dark that intermingle with each other creating a visual playground, bringing to life quirky characters that are beautifully rendered yet with a painterly hand giving them an innocent raw touch. Mason's works are both horrific and humorous yet speaks of what it means to be human.
Artist Statement
A VERBALIZATION ON MY VISUALIZATION
The visual world that I create is home to an offbeat cast of characters. They span a range of emotional temperaments. These characters act as a mirror to the human experience. They reflect both cute, sweet and broken, sad beings. I create worlds where conflicted creatures live amongst touching, sad, darkly humorous scenarios. The visuals are a stitched, queasy, patchwork quilt of emotions. It's an imperfect, cracked veiny world, with all their beautiful imperfections. This is a place where failures, wishers and dreamers live. This is a place that brings laughter and sadness together for tea.
Within the work twisted life combinations using the balance of opposites (dark vs. light or sweet vs. sour) are explored. The human experience is full of many strange tragic moments that are sad yet, at the same time, so full of comedy. It is this mix of comedy and tragedy—beauty and horror that I enjoy fusing together. Humor and horror married together to give birth to a family of characters. They are my reflections on the world. By utilizing my characters, I aim to paint truths about my experience of being human. Through my lens I aim to create a balance or a tug of war between good and evil, hope and despair. All while telling stories about navigating life. These character documentations are my modern fairy tale. I am weaving them together, growing it with time and experience. My characters, me and the viewer are all on a journey together.
The work reflects how I cope and see things within our modern world. My work is grown from personal life experiences, dreams, memories ,fairy tales and current events. Everything I encounter, I filter through as an ingredient toward cooking up my personal visions. The outcome of my visuals I like to refer to as Grotesque Folk Pop. The work is a mix of bright cheery colors and melancholic cute characters existing in this world. They are a funny, whimsical, dark, and tragic view at the wonderful mess of life.
Creating magic in life and making a personal universe is a wonderful gift. Not only to myself but also to others around me.
A wise cookie I ate once told me "Ideas you may believe are absurd ultimately lead to success. Lucky numbers:22, 12, 7, 46, 4, 25"
