Maite Backman

I have swedish-colombian origins, but was born in Spain. I spend several months a year in the United States, where I also have family, so I feel from nowhere and everywhere at the same time. I started my art studies in Sweden and completed them in Spain. Since then I have never stop painting. However it's only three years ago I started doing it full time, in a professional way. Since then I have held multiple exhibitions, both collective and solo.

I always use oil paints, and mostly on wood. My technique is inspired on traditional painters such as Velazquez, Rembrandt or Tiziano.

My work presents a very special way of approaching and interpreting nature – which departs from traditional representations as landscapes or still-life’s. My works tend to place the subject-plants center-stage using a purely pictorial technique but also playing with other resources from photography, in this way it offers the viewer the opportunity to contrast the natural with the artificial, reflected in human-intervention. The main objective is to highlight nature with the value it deserves, without disregarding the human influences but rather turning these influences into another element altogether. In each image, some clear light crosses and cuts the leaves, the flowers and the stems, revealing the fine veins of sage, the wonderful textures of fruits and the brightly colored games. That same impassive light, gives life not only to each plant, but to the painter and to the spectator.

MFA in Fine Arts at Universidad Complutense, Madrid, Spain
Konstskolan Basis, Fine Art Studies. Stockholm.
Folkuniversitet, Ceramics, Stockholm.

Velazquez, Rembrandt, Vermeer, Van Eyck, Tiziano, Morandi.

botanics, flowers, plants, nature, oilpainting, figurative