Margo Selski

Margo Selski is known for creating lush Surrealist paintings that quote Flemish painting and 19th century portraiture.

Selski’s work deconstructs the continuing appeal of realistic painting in a contemporary art landscape where such work is often considered irrelevant. “Realistic painting offers the artist the ultimate control because everything in the world depicted is handmade by the artist,” states Selski. “My paintings are not so much portraits of figures, but portraits of the human desire for control that is often futile but deeply irresistible.”

Artist Statement

I currently share my world with several dozen paintings, three university courses that I teach, three young children, and one husband.
I am kept running a path through my day. The way is patched with detours, but the perimeters are permanent. However, in the center of the labyrinth perches a blank canvas. It is my empty orchestra.
My work may seem to parody old masterpieces. I create a theatre and people it with an ornate cast: queens, mothers, children, predators, prey, florae, faunae. They live in airless, still places where each creature knows whom she should love or hate.
I wish they could be kept in these poses.
But then, the balances become uncertain. Relationships become inverted. Mothers become children. Children become empty eggs. Princesses become wolves. Eggs, children, families, all start to divide and become something unrecognizable. Soon, no one knows how they should think or feel. My sparkling utopia becomes unstable.
Yet still, the unbending wish for love, certainty, permanence. So I lift the brush again.
In this pose am I kept.