Inspired by... Maria Kreyn
Maria Kreyn’s work really spoke to us as individuals and as a business. We chose her astonishing oil paintings to be featured in our annual zine because of their effortless nature yet diligent technique. Each painting is full of character and worthy of admiration.
Taking something traditional and reimagining it what fascinated us most about Kreyn’s work. It’s the same approach when you look at agencies and brands. At a base level, most skincare brands for example, are the same. They claim to improve your skin. But it’s their nuances, their ingredients, creative execution and how they relate to people that differentiate them. Similarly, all agencies claim to help brands sell their products. What we have done with DUO is reimagined the traditional agency approach to create something more inspiring and relevant.
And Kreyn’s compositions are not strictly traditional. While deriving the technical foundations from old master works of the Baroque and Romantic periods, she reframes these techniques and expands them into a realm of stirring emotional narratives, unique personal histories and surrealism.
Her paintings are inspiring to us for their ethereal strength, each a quiet force to be reckoned with. Here are a few we were really inspired by:
‘The Solipsist’ - this painting made us consider the tension between self-belief and trusting collaborations. Solipsism holds that knowledge of anything outside one's own mind is unsure; the external world and other minds cannot be known and might not exist outside the mind. The nature of our business is built on collaboration, trusting minds outside your own is a human truth that reaps both risk and reward.
’Chasing Memory I’ - this painting has real momentum despite challenges and fractures. This is true of any startup journey, such hurdles are integral to success and a thing of beauty.
’Memory Recaptured’ - we started as a duo and we are still going strong, encouraging and supporting each other through every decision and keeping our business connected and harmonious moving forward in this time of growth and change.
