Profiles of Contemporary Art and - ARTisSpectrum

Debra Fitzsimmons
Carlo Proietto
Award-winning artist Debra Fitzsimmons uses her
compelling mixed media art to grapple with societal ills,
political controversy, and human rights issues. Her deepseated
commitment to political and social issues is conveyed
with powerful, yet decidedly human, imagery. The fractured
compositions, heraldic symbols, expressive scrawled words,
and moody palette are immediately striking. The people within
her paintings seem disjointed, ill at ease, alienated, and
lost. Yet the faces and limbs are beautifully rendered in high
contrast lighting cast for a sculptural and emotional appeal.
With all these dramatic trimmings, we truly empathize with the
individuals we are faced with through her work.
Fitzsimmons uses her talents to spread a message. “I hope
my works help people to think more systematically and
communicate more productively about social issues,” she
explains. Tailoring her artistic approach to each topic, the
artist employs a combination of oil paint, stain, and cold wax
intermixed with layers of collage. Yet these visual elements are
merely the final component in her process. Using the skills she
acquired as an educator, Fitzsimmons thoroughly investigates
the issue at hand, reviewing literature and recording
observations. She takes the hard data and composes a visual
metaphor, speaking not only to the particular timely issue, but
linking it to the long history of humankind. These are our days,
she reminds her audience, and we must do right by each other.
www.fitzsimmonsarted.com
www.Agora-Gallery.com/ArtistPage/Debra_Fitzsimmons.aspx
Borrowed Mixed Media on Canvas 36” x 36”
Dall’altra Parte Pyrography 27” x 24”
Carlo Proietto’s sharp, fluid compositions feature dazzling
choreographies of lines and forms, bounding movements
between layers of figuration, text and abstraction. This effect
is only made bolder by his choice of media. The Italian artist
has written extensively on pyrography, a practice whose sharp
strokes and clean shapes may evoke woodblock printing,
drawing and even oil paints, but whose process is far more
intriguing and volatile. Proietto composes each line by applying
a heated element to his surface, manipulating burn marks and
temperatures to mould their tint, thickness and movement.
This lends figurative elements made of bold, thick marks an
illustration-like quality, whereas abstract geometric patterns
call to mind prints and etchings.
Proietto, a passionate advocate of pyrography’s major artistic
merits, makes his best arguments for the medium in his work,
which abounds in infinitely sensitive modulations of tone and
line, closely packed complex elements alongside gracefully
molten movements. His subjects meld portraiture and
exhaustingly rendered pop culture imagery with fragments of
text and networks of abstract geometry that could represent
the indecipherable hieroglyphs of some lost fire tribe. He
combines familiar symbols and characters with confrontational
portraits and highly personal grid-like forms for a total effect
that never overwhelms with its bold, clean lines, but maintains
a surprising, combustible charge.
www.carloproietto.it
www.Agora-Gallery.com/ArtistPage/Carlo_Proietto.aspx
34 ARTisSpectrum