After graduating from Thomas Aquinas College, Maria (Rangel ’99) Cardenas earned a bachelor’s degree in fine arts from the Laguna College of Art and Design in Laguna Beach, California, in 2005. She has grown in her insight and technique throughout her studies and has also gained much inspiration from a semester abroad at the Angel Academy of Art in Florence, Italy.
Mrs. Cardenas works as a professional fine artist from her home art studio, specializing in drawing, painting, and surface pattern design. A homeschooling, stay-at-home mom, she lives in San Bernardino County with her beloved husband and four children.
Ranging from plein air landscapes to narrative compositions with figures or still life, Mrs. Cardenas’ work strives to capture the beauty of God and of nature — helping weary hearts find enduring joy. “Similar to the painters of the Renaissance,” she shares, “my artistic ambition lies in producing art which is beautiful and at the same time full of meaning. I find great pleasure in producing a work of art that can bring joy and beauty into someone’s life every time they look at it.”
Her art, like the College’s classical curriculum, calls on the best works of the Western tradition. “Looking at the great art of the past,” she notes, “one can ask: What makes this work endure, century after century, enticing each new viewer to gaze with wonder at its mastery?” Perhaps not surprisingly, she credits as her own inspirations “the painters of the Italian Renaissance — such as Da Vinci and Botticelli, John Singer Sargent, The American Landscape Impressionists, and George Inness.”
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