Miro
FitzGerald

About Miro FitzGerald

BRUSHSTROKE PAINTINGS

Since the mid-1970s, Miro has created a personal genre of abstract acrylic "color field" paintings composed of thousands of small, horizontal brush strokes.

"I first began creating the paintings after completing my MFA from the University of Washington, Seattle while on a year-long overland trip through Europe, Greece, India, Afghanistan, and Nepal in 1975".

The unique painting technique was a response to contrast the freedom of the abstract expressionist movement of the 1960s and the recognition of the advent of the computer and digital age of the 1970s.

“On occasion, I will use a metronome to help establish a cadence, a pattern, or rhythm. I invite the viewer to regard these works as meditations, the repetition of one entity - a brushstroke - to create the whole. The works derive their inspiration from vistas and horizons, aerial and undersea imagery, and vast or intimate spaces of overlap and passage. Through the repetition of the simplest of forms, the compositions of multiple brush strokes overlapping can create a shimmer and a mirage. The paintings are intended to be non-representational and contain no identifiable or hidden objects.”

LANDSCAPE PAINTINGS

The detailed compositions of Miro FitzGerald’s brushstroke paintings comprised of controlled, exacting brushstrokes give way to bold abstracts of the Southwest landscape.

"The landscapes allow me to loosen up and welcome nature into the studio. To bear witness to the world around me in Arizona."

Both painting styles express her deep creativity. Creating brushstroke paintings requires a certain patience and precision while the landscape paintings express a looser, bolder quality. The precision of repetition and aligning things,gives way to the freedom of motion and expression within nature. The landscapes created in oil achieve a rich, impasto effect by using a palette knife and brush while the acrylic landscape paintings may incorporate collage materials to create the interaction of added depth and color.

“My landscapes are a visual celebration of the Southwest, a way to highlight the exceptional sunsets, skies, unique rock formations, and vistas that draw you inward. I try to capture the boldness, beauty, and light and refer to my landscape style as “Abstracted Realism ”.

Art is an intrinsic part of Miro's life as both of her parents were prominent Northwest artists. Miro's father, James FitzGerald, was an accomplished painter/sculptor who created monumental abstract bronze fountains throughout the United States, and her mother, artist/painter Margaret Tomkins, was a highly gifted and influential abstract Northwest painter. Miro's brother, Jared FitzGerald, is a prominent painter and ceramicist who resides in both NYC and Beijing, China. He is the owner of The Jared FitzGerald Galleries in NYC and the Hamptons, Long Island New York.

BACKGROUND

Miro FitzGerald’s background includes an MFA from the University of Washington and additional studies at The San Francisco Art Institute, CA. She received Full Fellowships to The Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Maine, The Yale School of Art, Norfolk Connecticut, a one-year Max Beckman Memorial Grant to the Brooklyn Museum School in New York City, and an Invitational Artist in Residency to the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough New Hampshire. She studied under such renowned artists as Robert Motherwell, Helen Frankenthaler, Jim Dine, and Jacob Lawrence.

Miro's artworks are exhibited in schools, universities, banks, corporations, and private collections throughout the United States.

Miro resides in Sedona, Arizona where she has been continually inspired by the desert landscapes and lifestyle for the past twenty-one years. Miro came to Sedona with her late husband William S. Watson, Green Beret, Ceramic Artist, and Painter. She now shares her home with her beloved dog Bojangles. Miro has served as Assistant Director at the Sedona Arts Center in the past and continues to create and exhibit her unique artworks there.