Marina Blight has been a full-time artist since 2004. Her artistic foundation was laid studying towards a teaching diploma during the mid-eighties with art as a major subject. Over the years she started developing her own ‘signature’. Although mostly self-taught she attended various courses and workshops. The art curator of The FirstRand Group ‘found’ her during 2006 and became her mentor. Her first breakthrough came in the same year when he procured a painting called ‘Man without a dog’ for the FirstRand corporate collection.
Since then some 30 paintings now form part of corporate collections. In addition, private collectors and international patrons of the art have acquired her work. She has exhibited in more than 20 solo and group exhibitions and was a finalist of the Thami Mnyele Fine Arts Competition exhibition during 2011. Marina regularly conducts workshops and demonstrations to fellow artists on various techniques. Her work, oil on canvas and mixed media, speak mostly of her inner feelings and how she sees the world supporting her motto that “Art is our perceptions of reality”.
Marina travels to ‘out of the ordinary’ places in South Africa. It is those places we read about and dream to visit. It is here that majestic landscapes, expansive seascape or simply something special touches her heart. Each of her paintings portrays the reality of the scene as a medium to reveal something of her inner soul, her passion for simplicity, the harmony that she seeks and her own life experiences.
“I have found the greatness of life in art.”
– Marina Blight
“Like her work, Marina is an amazing study in contrasts. The spiritual and artistic are balanced by a deep seam of refreshingly straight forward Afrikaans practicality. I do not have the language of art to draw on, but it seems to me that Marina’s early instincts were to simply paint what she saw – with developing skills and obvious passion – but with little artifice and a very ‘practical’ vision of the world. But in the last few years a new artist has emerged; an artist with an increasing sense of confidence.
Marina has I suspect found her artistic voice. A unique and enthralling sense of style has been added to her obvious skill and technique and the resultant works are engaging, challenging and increasingly compelling. As a film maker I am obviously drawn to the ‘wide-screen’ works, to the darker tones and richer textures; but with each and every new work I see a more and more self assured artist with a richer, clearer, more confident voice and a singular vision.”