Maggie Rozycki

Creating art in nature is my love. I am fueled by its wild energy and beauty. Nature is my starting point, as it offers infinite colors, shapes, lines, compositions, and relationships. My intention is not to paint exactly what I see. I paint abstractly because I like the looseness and gestural strokes of color. This is what allows for a direct response to being immersed in nature. The painting takes off from there. I don’t know what will happen. I follow it.

The body and nature are a primary focus of my work.  This includes: bodies of humans, animals, insects, plants, water, rocks – the whole body of earth.  We are all connected.  We are nature and we belong to Mother Earth.

The separation of body from mind and the healing of it has been a theme for 40 years. This is an exploration of both the beauty of all life being connected and the ugliness of how disconnection from our bodies and nature causes immense suffering from personal to global. 

I began making art in high school and have a degree in Art from U of MN with a focus on drawing and painting. In 1980 I stopped in at Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theater (HOBT) and stayed for 5 years. I wanted to make Art for Social Change. I found my tribe and puppet theater was perfect. Besides visual art, it adds movement, words, and music, giving more ways to tell the whole story. Yet, sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words.

After leaving HOBT, I created my own shows and worked with others. From 1980 – 2013, 33 years, I was a performing artist in Puppet and Mask Theater and European Clown. I loved creating work with others.

Much of the Puppet and Mask Theater was on Racism, including creating an organization called Puppets Against Racism (PAR) and on separation and connection of Body/MInd.

I have always wanted my art to help save the world.  I hope you are nourished by it.  I certainly am by making it.