Mandy Budan, Abstract Landscape Painter

I came across Mandy Budan’s paintings quite randomly through one of my endless web surfing sessions. That particular session ended right there and then as her work stopped me in my tracks.

The first thing I noticed was the familiar landscape. Mandy hails from Ontario, just a few hours away from my hometown of Montreal. Her collection of shapes and colors perfectly captures the indigenous landscape. I recognized it immediately and delighted in her visual interpretation of the local fauna.

Then, her joyful and captivating use of color. Her colors blend, contrast, clash and harmonize. And while, objectively, they often don’t relate to the item being depicted, they also represent it wonderfully. Mandy doesn’t have a favorite color. She says that the color that she is working with at that moment is her favorite color.

The abstract landscape painting style got me. Landscapes are not something I usually fawn over, but Mandy’s landscapes are refreshing, modern, vibrant and produce an equal amount of realism and mystery. For Mandy, the movement and relationship of the shapes and colors are imperative. She says it’s like a puzzle, where the pieces need to fit together, sometimes at the peril of realism.

She is influenced by native Canadian painters and by Chuck Close, a (photorealist & hyperrealist) portraitist, being particularly taken by his pixelated large scale portraits.

I paint abstracts of the landscape, emphasizing and rearranging the elements to show the beauty of the landscape in unexpected ways. Inspired by nature, I use strong colour, discrete shapes and rhythmic patterns to create paintings which can be enjoyed for both their abstract and realistic qualities.

Mandy’s  labor intensive painting style only yields her about 17 to 18 paintings per year. The current work in progress is already labeled with a collector’s “right of first refusal”. But, not to despair. Mandy sells (very affordable) prints of selected paintings on Etsy. She’ll even do commission pieces (if you ask really nicely).

It’s fascinating  to go through her blog to observe how her paintings progress and come into their own.

Stay tuned for a giveaway for a Mandy Budan print. You will want to subscribe to email notifications (see right sidebar) to make sure that you are notified over the next few weeks.