Still life definitely does not mean static in Mickie Acierno's paintings.

Mickie Acierno - Nature and light

By definition, Mickie Acierno's paintings are still life. But as those who know her work recognize, there's nothing very still about them. Indeed, her breathtaking brand of heightened realism has an almost electric intensity about it.

Date and place of birth
Mickie Acierno was born in New Westminster, British Columbia. She now lives in the environs of Calgary, Alberta.

Training and career
Acierno was painting from early childhood and received her first set of oils as a Christmas present when she was 11. By the time she was a teenager, she was painting landscapes, first in watercolours and then in oils, teaching herself the basics from a series of how-to books. At 24, she took a series of painting workshops. >>

Acierno painted on and off all the while she was raising her three children, but it wasn't until 2000 that she enrolled in the three-year graphic design program at the Univerity College of theFraser Valley in Abbotsford.

After Acierno received her diploma in 2003, she moved to Nanaimo on Vancouver Island and she began to devote herself to painting full-time. She immediately developed a disciplined and professional approach to her craft.

Her work and art
By definition, Mickie Acierno's paintings are still life. But as those who know her work recognize, there's nothing very still about them. Indeed, her breathtaking brand of heightened realism has an almost electric intensity about it. Acierno's work seems to glow as if lit from within.

Acierno's technique is to start with line and then work the painting for tonal values in black and white or brown and white, achieving depth by adding multiple layers of thin colour on top of that.

Static objects, ranging from porcelain teapots to gleaming glass marbles are so vividly rendered in her exacting, detailed oil paintings they seem poised to leap off the canvas. Her compositional juxtapositions seem to buzz with a life of their own, and when she paints fruits, as she frequently does, each orange, apple or grape seems so bursting with juice that salivating viewers can be excused for claiming to taste them. Her work varies widely in size, and even the smallest have an impact - but in her largest canvases the effect can be almost devastating.

The artist has developed an ingenious style through the dynamic portrayal of still life forms, filled with energy and a vitality that transforms static objects into human shapes and personalities that appear to be engaging in a dialogue with one another, or in a slow, graceful dance.

Still life definitely does not mean static in Acierno's paintings. Like characters in a play these objects tell stories that are magically endless.

At La Galerie d'art Au P'tit Bonheur
Since June 2013.