Maria Tomasula’s luminous paintings boast an eerie beauty in their trompe l’oeil detail, impeccably portraying fruit, meat, bones, insects, feathers, nails, and other natural and man-made objects. Her still life arrangements, with their visceral references to martyrdom, sainthood, and fetishism, become metaphors for human spirituality. She is greatly influenced by her Mexican heritage, looking back to the mysticism of her church upbringing, and blending that with elements of Spanish art and Mexican Folk Art. A skilled painter, she deliberately omits any hint of brushwork, masking the hand of the artist behind a precise, machine-like surface.
Tomasula received her BFA from the University of Illinois at Chicago and her MFA from Northwestern University. She has been a professor of art at Notre Dame since 1994.