Profiles of Contemporary Art and - ARTisSpectrum

Rosa Ibarra
Every stop on Rosa Ibarra’s life journey has added new textures, styles
and materials to her luminous impressionist paintings of women and
children. Born in Puerto Rico, she went to high school in Paris, and she
applies the warm, tropical tones of the former in elaborate patterns that
remind one of Georges Seurat’s pointillist Parisian cityscapes. Ibarra
occasionally incorporates collage elements like sea glass or beads into
her canvases to create additional volumes and surprising lighting effects
around her figurative subjects in a way that displays rare ingenuity and
creative experimentation. She portrays her female sitters in beautiful,
evocative detail, juxtaposing modest postures and abstracted settings with
symbolist and surreal imagery like angelic wings or giant plants.
While her feminist figures and subject matter have an earthy, almost
sparse quality about them, Ibarra’s groundbreaking style of painting is
astoundingly rich, complex and strikingly unique. Every paint daub and
collage element is full of color and texture, creating a mosaic-like effect
wherein each individual unit commands attention and interest. This allows
her to layer delicate patterns, complex forms and subtle shifts in tone into
her paintings, bringing every sector to vibrant life; yellow dresses seem
sewn through with green and red fabric, a white backdrop is speckled
with flashes of gold. Rosa Ibarra demonstrates exquisite sensitivity in her
works, and elicits a similar way of seeing from her viewers.
Aria Mixed Media on Canvas 36” x 28”
www.rosaibarra.com
www.Agora-Gallery.com/ArtistPage/Rosa_Ibarra.aspx
Eurydice Acrylic, Mixed Media & Gold Leaf on Canvas 30” x 30”
The Montreal-based mixed-media artist Micheline
Raymond cites the significant role of rhythm in her process
when creating bold, layered, sculptural collages on canvas.
She likens the creation of her works to a kind of dance, an
apt metaphor given their visual force and material flexibility.
She plays with notions of transparency, bringing light into her
compositions by applying acrylic paints to transparent silk
paper which she glues to canvases in layers, some flattened,
others ridged and jagged like topographical miniatures. This
process conceals areas of color which hide beneath one
another, creating compounded tones that shift unpredictably
and surprisingly. Powerful hues like rich reds and royal blues
compete for dominance in most pieces as sculptural collage
elements catch the light in unexpected ways.
Though she favors abstraction and often embeds written or
collaged text among expressionistic brushstrokes, Raymond
flirts with forms and arrangements that evoke landscapes—
generally rivers, seascapes, and other watery forms befitting
her fluid aesthetic. Elsewhere she turns completely figurative
with impressionistic human subjects referencing myth and
allegory. She gives these ancient characters new vitality and dimension in her work by creating complex textures and overlapping
materials. In augmenting her training in sculpture with techniques from painting and collage, Raymond creates exciting hybrids
that are greater than the sum of their parts.
www.michelineraymond.com
www.Agora-Gallery.com/ArtistPage/Micheline_Raymond.aspx
Micheline Raymond
97 ARTisSpectrum