It is not the smell of diluents nor the pungency of the resins that wraps this place to make it like an oasis on this buzzing isle of Manhattan but the spirit of the place, the energy, the trust, the belief and the unconditional love of human beings…For the last 12 years Maria Teresa Meloni Florentine painter has concentrated on oil portrait studies Thru her art she manages to render the deepest layers of the human soul vivid and clear.

They say she started at age seven

Yes I was in my third grade .. All the children were painting different shapes, different fruits and I came up with deposition of Christ….It is exactly the Virgin Mary looking at Christ on the Cross. You can see the profile of Mary with the veil on … after 20 years I studied my little painting again and visible under the veil there is sketched the roundness of the profiled cranium as if it was a study in order to give the prospective to the rest of the face that with just the veil on top would have resulted had to achieve,h’mmm and I was only 7” 

Her positive spirit made her go thru hardships and there were many of those…

I met Elizabeth Ross Johnson at the swimming pool of my gym. She became my first patron. When she came to my studio, I treated her like a neighbor. We had coffee, tea later on that week I was commissioned. This is a fairy tale kind of deal (she smiles). …I still had not realized who she was!! And that is how the New York story begins...

…How do you work?

“I am with the patrons all the time, but I move like a shadow not to disturb the rhythm of their daily lives. Of course we talk a great deal, and it is not only I asking questions,. I want them to get to know me too.I say- I come to you, you come to me – and then we meet in the middle point and that is the painting. …And then she paints for 4 months…And they say she was born too late in the centuries I think it is because of the city where I am from – Florence. The region itself – Tuscany. It was the smell, the feeling, and the peacefulness of antiquity of the 14th century. I embrace the philosophy, It is the time of the re-birth. The domination of The Vatican is very present but alas! It is the time of Pico Della Mirandola, His beautiful poetry is the manifest of the renaissance. Man is the only center of the universe with his free will and all his forms of expression are magnified.

…a meeting that you will never forget

Heath Leger… He was one of the most humble creatures I have ever met in my life. “I meet him at café Gitane, I was having breakfast At The table next to me Heath Leger was having his breakfast. Just when he was about to pay his bill I got up and said – “I wanted to introduce myself. My name is Maria Teresa Meloni. This is my office(upstairs is my studio, so you are in my office – he was already cracking up – I have been asking your friend NFA for 3 years to introduce me to you. But at this point I thought I would take the matter in my hands – I am a painter, I particularly like painting little children, and since you have one maybe you are interested in seeing my work – For sure - he said and he scribble his info on a little piece of paper (she shows the little note) Minutes later I am in my apartment talking to him through mylaptop. I showed him my work.

…and he said he had never seen anything like it. A couple of minutes later she was in his apartment talking about details

“ I remember that his phone would not stop ringing. He finally picked up and said “ I am with a friend of mine, I have to call you later”. He showed me beautiful photos of his daughter. We decided to meet in the first week of February.” You will come to live with Matilda and me. I do not want a portrait of Matylda only. I want to be there with her. I will hold her and you will paint us together”.
…I cannot stop thinking about it, what an awful thing his death was. If only we would have done it then.Even though it was a brief moment, the fact that he recognized something so special in me is priceless, since his talent was vast! I will go on telling this story forever….” 

Information: www.meloniportraits.com