ART CRITIQUE & ESSAYS
Essay by Alejandro Boim
In Karina Carrescia's paintings time elapses differently.
There the infinite technologies and whims of this hurried world are reduced to nothing. With impeccable craftsmanship, carved over years, Karina creates a meticulous, absolutely personal and subtle universe that does not dazzle, but rather hypnotizes the viewer. An immensurable universe, without limits, for those who are willing to let themselves float.
In her canvases and drawings, everything is possible, everything can be accommodated with incredible ease, from buildings and cloths to characters and objects; that, those of us who struggle with painting every day know, is one of the merits of his work.
Very few artists have achieved it.
Alejandro Boim
Fine Arts Professor
National School of Fine Arts. Argentina
ESSAY by Paolo Sacchini
`Hard to believe Buenos Aires had any beginning. I feel it to be as eternal as air and water.´ Jorge Luis Borges
This significant phrase by Borges is reflected in every piece of Carrescia's works. `Arias del Río de la Plata´ is a symbolic title that represents the character of the city of Buenos Aires. The words paragon the meaning of `good airs´, whereas the paintings glorify water and the river, represented by delicate colors and poetry.
While the waters of the Río de la Plata reflect sensibly the landscape of the city, the artist is inspired by the air – Aria – as in a movement of a beautiful musical composition. And it is manifested through these landscape scenes, where nature merges strongly with architecture.
In paintings such as “Woman's Bridge” - a modern structure with extraordinary plastic power disappears in the waters of the river and in the color of the sky - the landscape is transformed into a wide view achieved with vivid brush strokes and exquisite chromatic variations.
Many influences contribute to determining Carrescia's brushstrokes. Her most beloved painters are those of the great era of the 17th century, such as Rembrandt, Vermeer and Caravaggio. But the most obvious derivation is perhaps that of the late-impressionist matrix. The artist mentions her fascination with Turner, Whistler and Monet and this is reflected in works such as Caprice in Gold and Rose, Variations in Cerulean and Aria in Blue.
Arias, variations, whims and adages, adapt beautifully in harmony between landscape and color. Contrasts of light, blurs and glazes, reflections and mists, are achieved between pure colors that transport us for an instant to the arias of the Río de la Plata.
“It is necessary to work the shadows in order to create light, since there is no light without shadow” says the artist.
While for us, it is so interesting to stop and observe an artist who pursues with passion and consistency the path of the purest drawing and concrete work in the workshop, without abandoning herself to words and without so much dogmatism of disordered innovations.
Paolo Sacchini
PhD in History of Art and Entertainment at the University of Parma. Italy
Vice Director at Accademia SantaGiulia di Brescia. Italy
Former Director at Collezione Paolo VI. Brescia. Italy
ESSAY by Eugenio De Caro
Karina Carrescia projects this show as a very significant essay.
In her paintings, art captures both the reality and the essence of the landscape with the most sensitive approach.
Her exceptional technique stands out along with her particular use of color palettes, whether bright or pale, but always evoking a profound impression on the viewer.
Inspired by the city of Buenos Aires, the artist leads the spectator through skies and buildings while breathing life into them with the most exquisite colors and a sense of music. Karina shares with us her private vision of beauty and the magnificence of the natural world and light.
In her paintings, musicality is always present through the use of her own language, color. It is such an honor for Accademia Santa Giulia to present such a beautiful show to our community.
Dott. Eugenio De Caro
Philosophy and Phd in Risearch in Philosophical anthropology
Director in Alta Scuola di Progettazione Europea. Italy
Former Vice Director at Accademia di Belle Arti SantaGiulia di Brescia, Italy
ESSAY by Dolores González Pondal
The exhibition ´Mary in the Americas´ that visual artist Karina Carrescia presents to us, is a series of paintings of different advocations of the Virgin Mary in the Latin American, Caribbean and North American territories.
The artist made a thorough research of the character and local aesthetics, exploring the roots of viceregal America as a starting point, but the great achievement and striking beauty of the different works lies in her interpretation of them from a contemporary point of view. In this manner, she delights the viewer with the iconographic characteristics of each portrayal of the Virgin.
Her passion for purity of colors is reflected in the colorful capes full of flowers and ornaments along with native symbols, plants, flowers, and birds, set within a radiant landscape frame design. With an almost miniaturist technique, which incorporates tempera, watercolor, ink and gold leaf, she emulates the technique used by viceregal artists.
Through masterful brushstrokes, she gives her paintings a fresh appearance and a velvety texture achieved with subtle glazes and brushstrokes. The use of gold on the leaves results in giving it the imprint of an American colonial painting.
Along the path of faith through beauty, the artist offers us a journey of contemplation of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
An exhibition of beauty, symbols and colors of our land.
Dolores González Pondal
Art Conservator and Restorer
Professor at Tarea/ Conservation Program at UNSAM - University of San Martin. Argentina
International team member of ´Conserving canvas´ supported by Getty Conservation Institute at Museo America, Spain
ESSAY by Luisella Magnani
`And Music from her respiration spread like light´. P.B. Shelly
Colours smelling light in filling geometries of spaces whereon and wherein the sensitive onlooker dwells contained within the walls of the canvas. Colours creating light, because the light par excellence… the shapes and shades are the breathing of their meaning.
Exterior spaces marbled sweetly, only an interior space, the musical interior! All the paintings contained with it.
The landscapery scenery is painted by the silent music becoming geometry of light, tasting of light, smelling of light, touching of light in all the paintings.
The colours sings. It sings the music of being in the space of Buenos Aires, disclosing those Buenos aires whose voice is ideal, real and moral, ideal – real – moral dimension which is the space of all these paintings.
It seems that each canvas wants to contain the sensitive Onlooker´s calling who invites every Man to the Art of Listening.
The sensitive Onlooker does not look at her paintings, where the painting lies, but as Merleau Ponty said, his eyes wander within the painting as well as within the rooms of the world. Instead of looking at the painting, he sees according to the painting itself and with the painting itself.
The River becomes the Sky, as well as the Sky becomes the River. The River rivers the Sky, the Sky skies the River.
The light inside the action belonging to he colour creates this moving – light – Image.
Each painting invites the Sensitive Looker to enter the canvas in order to touch the smell of a Lanscape Landscaping Itself owing to the sunning of that light, the Divine Light coming from each canvas, each canvas is a room of God´s Space Creation.
The blue light tastes the azure – Light smelling the sun light, hearing the rythms and rhymes of white colour. It is the playing – a – piano where the musical landscapery delights and translights the smiling face belonging to Buenos Aires. The Beyonding of the paintings discloses a new wayness of living the painting itself.
Sweet slices of Buenos- Aires – Spaces have converted into colourful Time of Days and Nights lived by the Painter, Karina Carrescia, and her Sensivite Onlooker, who tastes, feels, smells, touches, hears – and – sees, also that Never – painted, that not – yet – painted belonging not only to the Artist’s inner space and time, But to the Sensitive Onlooker´s, too.
It is the tasting – smelling – touching – hearind Dimension which colours the space of the canvas leading the Sensivite Onlooker Beyond the rythms ans rhymes of the poetical lines written within the walls of the Universal Canvas… the Artist´s Heartrooms.
Dott. Luisella Magnani
Phd in Modern Foreign Languages and Literature
Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore di Milano