Carmen Marie Alonso is a self-taught artist with a primary focus on oil painting. She was born in 1997 and raised in the valley of Terra Nova. She currently lives and works in Toronto. Thematically, Carmen Marie’s work is centered around her own life. The dream-like spaces she creates are imagined as a result of personal memory. These memories are translated with a fantastical visual language that is rooted heavily in narrative. The scenes are nearly too grand and ceremonious to be true. The figures are more than alternative renderings of self, friends, and lovers; they are protectors, dancers, forces of nature, mystics, and icons. In this way, her work is confessional, as it examines her memories as she wishes to remember and reimagine them. Beyond this, the narratives that unfold in each work seem to hint at what she craves. The figures in the work become guides; revealing to us what is to come in this fantasy of living.
Contact
carmenmarie.alonso@gmail.com
(416) 768 2722
Toronto, ON, CA
Be Near Me
A promise and a plea.
A lullaby and a lie.
Part of a hymn my mother sang
each night before bed.
These words came to mean
"As long as I am here, you are safe."
My faith in her ability to keep me from harm
grew with each passing night.
It rages on today.
Love is not only present with us in the moment it is expressed.
It remains with us.
Only now, with a community of my own to safeguard, do I hear the promise she made for what it is—and always was:
a wish and a prayer.
I now understand helplessness, feeling it most acutely when I'm unable to shield someone from pain, loss, corrupt systems, accidents, or heartache.
This body of work is a documented intention.
I will stay near.
I will swear myself to those who need me despite knowing the limits of my care.
These pieces also serve as fantasy.
The characters in these scenes possess an extraordinary power of protection. They watch over and guide one another ruthlessly and tirelessly.
The environments they inhabit are wild and cloaked in vivid colour. Forests, riverbeds and ungoverned clearings offer a place to rest.
“ As long as you are here, you are safe.”
Many figures possess angelic wings made of dust and bone, symbolizing a desire to protect and inspire beyond the limits of our capabilities.
In this way, they represent both my wildest dream and my greatest fear.
While you are near these paintings, it is my hope that you are moved to bravely trust in the total force of your keeping.
