Visual Arts Brampton
Summer is blooming at city hall

Article about Maria Carosi's exhibit at City Hall, Brampton

Growing up in the small rural town of Celano in Italy, Maria Carosi dreamed of being an artist, but instead was apprenticed to a dressmaker to learn how to sew and embroider like all the other girls her age.

Now, at the age of 62, Carosi is finally living her dream; a collection of her vibrant landscape and figure paintings can be seen until Aug. 30 in the atrium of city hall.

The show’s main focus is Carosi’s passion for flowers.

"They always inspire me," she said. "Everything about nature inspires me, and the brighter the colours, the better."

Carosi said a bad back, earned during her years as a dressmaker, has forced her to give up gardening, but she still finds ways to fill her paintings with greenery.

"If you are an artist, you can make one flower look like a huge garden," she said, with a laugh. "I like to work on one theme at a time and I think I’ve done about 12 or 13 sunflower pictures."

Other pieces in the collection depict still-lifes, as well as portraits of her granddaughter at a dance recital, and images inspired by her trip to a vineyard in Niagara-on-the-Lake.

"Whenever I go somewhere, I don’t have to look all around at everything," she said. "I can just sit in one place and look to the left and look to the right and find something interesting to paint."

A piece she created during a vacation in Cancun won her the 1991 League for Innovation Award at Humber College. Carosi said she didn’t set out to create an award-winning piece, it was just a way to pass the time.

"The water was too rough to go in," she said. "So I decided to paint instead of swim."

Carosi, who emigrated to Canada in 1967, took a variety of one-off art courses throughout the ’70s, but decided to make a bigger commitment to her art in 1991, after taking 20 years off to raise her son and to help establish the family business, Carosi Construction.

"Once the company got to the point where I didn’t have to be there all the time, I enrolled in Humber for some part-time evening classes," she said. "I decided it was time for me."

After Humber, she was accepted at the Ontario College of Art and Design, where she earned her diploma in April 2000. Since then, she has displayed her work in a variety of group and solo shows across the GTA.

These days, she does the majority of her painting at home, in her walk-out studio.

"It’s my refuge," she said, with a smile. "You can almost always find me in there."

Right now, she said, she’s feeling inspired by something new.

"Lately I’ve been getting up early in the morning to paint the sunrise," she said. "Luckily, I’m a morning person, so I enjoy it. I usually go to bed with the chickens. You still have to work quickly though, because you can’t run after the sun and it moves too fast to take your time."

Next, she’s thinking about painting the landscape in Chinguacousy Park or maybe a study of water. Whichever she chooses, you can be assured she’ll be live on the scene to capture the images.

"No photos for me," she said. "You don’t get the spirit from a photo. Sometimes I have to take notes or sketches, but I always like to work from real life. Real life is so interesting."

Carosi can be contacted at maria @ carosi.com

• Maria Carosi Biography

Visual Arts Brampton - Contact Us, VAB Locations - © Copyright VAB