Golden Dawn

Golden Dawn, encaustic paintings  by Maggie Simonelli

Opalescence of crushed pearls, warmth resonating from coral, pale pinks,

red oranges, the colors of sunrise through the translucence of beeswax,

pale golds, shimmering silvers, these are the materials of Maggie

Simonelli's paintings for the exhibit entitled Golden Dawn that speak to the

heart through the senses. Enchanted by themes of nature, love and

presence in the series Golden Dawn Maggie Simonelli embraces the

feminine, beauty with highly decorative style and sensuality of touch.

Simonelli says, "Golden Dawn series is inspired by the presence and

awareness felt at the moment of the dawn as the sunlight spreads out on

the horizon and sparkles in soft shimmering golden haze of pink and

oranges. That moment awakens with its soft golden light creates the

transition coming out of the darkness of night and the beginning of the new

day. There is a stillness here at this moment between worlds where nature

resonates the transcendence within. As a witness, we awaken to beauty."

The Breeze at Dawn by Rumi

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don’t go back to sleep.

~ Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks, Essential Rumi

Simonelli uses materials as symbols. Pearls have been symbolic of goddess culture associated with Venus which finds its origins in the Middle East in goddess Astarte. Finding the transcendent within and being present to this source is part of the journey in this series. Alchemy of elements are “slow-cooked” on double boiler creating handmade paints of beeswax. Rich, luscious surfaces of soft cream of translucent pearls are layered like as if building the nacre surface of a pearl like softness of the clouds. The horizon of coral and pale glass pinks interlace inside the feathery pale gold and silver petals that radiate upward on wood panels with Simonelli's signature encaustic “burn-in” technique. Continually layering into wax, Simonelli layers of brushed on crushed pearls , pale pink and coral glass pigments within the pale colored beeswax with iridescence of imbedded metals.

Simonelli inspired by nature painting in Japanese art uses her own version of Sunago a Japanese technique in painting where cut foil in sprinkled across the surface to create the ground, the haze. The artist first came across this technique during her travels to Japan on her visit to the Gold and Silver: The Brilliance of Japanese Art exhibit at the Tokyo National Museum. Simonelli uses fine sprinkles of pale gold across the surface to create a soft golden haze of the sun rising embraced by the matte lush pearl above.

Simonelli paintings return to reverence of Nature, embracing the decorative, the liberation of beauty, sacred love and divinity of the feminine as a living nature. Maggie Simonelli painting process is a devotional contemplation, a communication of beauty and nature of the human spirit through the hand.

Go within.
Hear the story of sunrise from the sun itself.
If there were no sunrise within I would have set long ago !
- Rumi * 

*Inner Sunrise by Rumi, Rumi: In the Arms of the Beloved by Jonathan Star, 2008.