Profiles of Contemporary Art and - ARTisSpectrum

Anahit Etemadi
A Piece of Me! Mixed Media on Canvas 72” x 48”
Tyice Natasha
Anahit Etemadi drew her first portrait at the age of three, and
she hasn’t stopped since. Born and raised in Tehran, she
is now based in Toronto. Much of her recent work is of faces,
mostly of women, in a very unique, hybrid style. Her works are
composed in overlapping layers, with subtly shaded line drawings
beneath bold acrylic tones, chalk and collaged elements.
She works with subjects which have influenced her with their
charismatic beauty or spirituality. While painting, Anahit absorbs
the energy of her subject’s life story. Her Marilyn Monroe paintings
channel Marilyn’s energy through Anahit to the canvas.
She applies to her renditions of iconic characters a nostalgic
mood. Dripped, blended and diffuse swaths of color tint the
portraits, flowing over her canvases: chemical greens, cool blues,
deep purples and glamorous pinks.
The tension between these visual elements – careful portraits and
lush and gestural abstractions – adds to the complexity of each
painting. She draws on constantly shifting relationships between
lines and hues, adding depth to her strong female figures.
Faces are bathed in green and blue with innocent expressions;
elsewhere a woman with a playful air seems coquettish, framed
in pink and orange. She explores these formal and emotional
relationships in each portrait, investing familiar faces with
strikingly new expressions.
www.AnahitWorld.com
www.Agora-Gallery.com/ArtistPage/Anahit_Etemadi.aspx
Montreal-based painter Tyice Natasha developed her
distinctive, elegant and dynamic abstract expressionist
style while teaching English in Japan. Appropriately, the work
communicates in many different languages, incorporating
fragments of her poems in English written in discrete black type,
calligraphy-like strands of paint and figurative subjects translated
into evocative forms. She uses acrylic and pastel in her canvases,
weaving the materials through one another in long, sharp
filaments of varying thickness. These produce a quilt-like effect,
connecting the larger areas of complementary colors that form
each composition’s backdrop. The canvases set up a seemingly
clear distinction between figure and background that is then
problematized as pastel lines slip behind partially transparent
swaths of paint, and lines of text float ambiguously in between.
Also astounding, in addition to this playful layering, is how Natasha
creates an extremely powerful sense of dimension and dynamism
in each piece. The self-taught artist guides viewers’ eyes along
distinct geometric circuits. Swirling brushstrokes and loops of
pastel marks suggest a flurry of movement, while larger areas
of color in earlier layers provide one dominant direction. She
often punctuates this musical arrangement of subtle and strong
lines with stray drips of paint, like sharp notes floating above a
swift melody. These rhythmic qualities render her abstract cursive
compositions lyrical and profoundly engaging.
Winter’s Lament Acrylic, Collage & Ink on Canvas 26” x 21”
www.Agora-Gallery.com/ArtistPage/Tyice_Natasha.aspx
94 ARTisSpectrum