SEARCHING THE PAST

Description

One of my abstract paintings from the My Interior-Escapes series. This one I painted in search for those unaswered quetions from my past, a personal and dear piece to me.

Artist: Gabriella Fiabane
Location: USA
Medium: Acrylic on canvas
Support: 3/4" deep, gallery wrap, clean painted
Size: 24" x 30"
Signed on back
Shipping: Buyer pays for shipping, cost to be determined by UPS, USPS or FedEx

Artist Statement

I mainly work with watercolors and acrylics and at times I supplement my acrylic work with pastels, charcoal and pencils.
I find watercolors to be the ideal medium to paint landscape in plein air. I paint at daybreak and around an hour before sunset, mostly because the light at these times of day is richer and more challenging for me. My watercolor paintings could be defined as atmospheric and minimalist. My aim is to capture the feeling of the moment and the space, with sparse detail and frugal brush work. My portable studio is simple and compact, fitting in a laptop bag, this keeps the format of my paintings reduced to a manageable 9” x 11”; I work on three paintings at a time, moving the brush rapidly and spontaneously, the end result being a meditation in water and color.
I like to work in acrylics at my studio, where I have the space and flexibility to paint in medium and large formats. I work in different series at the same time switching from complete abstraction, to personal realism, to abstracted-escapes.
When I paint an abstract, I break the ice, between my brush and the blank canvas, by using the surrealist technique of automatism, letting the brush and the surface guide the first layer or foundation of the work. As I develop more layers I find clarity as to what I’m painting, the end result being a discovery of an interior-escape.
In my view, personal realism refers, as the word suggest, to a reality as interpreted by the artist. When I paint realistically, I generally paint landscapes and sometimes buildings that propose the presence of people. In this case, I always start with the sky, which is the foundation of light and mood. The evolution of the painting is dictated by memories and dreams. The end product is an alternate reality or personal reality.
The inspiration for my abstracted-escapes in the Nantucket series is the result of the effect of fog and how it distorts the field of vision by diffracting and creating droplet size lenses in the atmosphere. I paint this using short, droplet size, brush strokes and slowly moving across the canvas, resembling the calm trajectory of fog in the landscape. When completed, the work invites the viewer to examine at close range and then stepping back to see the whole effect, playing with a push and pull technique similar to that of the impressionists.

Added on Sep 20, 2009