Gloria Estefanell

This first image is a piece I presented at Art Miami 2022. It measured 7 by 10 feet. As all my work is oil on metal, aluminum to be precise. These materials are crucial to my exploration, they grant me the possibility to begin with a solid narrative immediately. Metal is, industrial, cold, machined; then gets manipulated and altered by color. Then it starts representing the human touch, and is somehow distorted into a nature far from its own, “That is the creative aspect of art.” My work is a narrative , “it relates a story, an emotion, a sensation.” The work wants to be large in nature as it offers multiple interpretations, living with a large-scale painting means, “ to coexist, to see one’s reflection in the piece, to feel the presence of a field of visuals that is greater than one’s own scale. When dealing with space the possibilities amplify, my focus is to create a rhythm, a flow and an exploration that maintains dynamism while establishing new experiences, ideally each time the piece is viewed. This is obtained by the communicative efforts of the materials, talking to one another as they are composed, and the nature of my materials, their chemical composition, allowing for a refreshingly new perspective at each viewing point. Oil paint and metal are naturally reflective, when combined, and with added clear coating, they offer an ever changing visual reality as light is reflected. “Ideally the painting keeps offering new details to be discovered even after years”. My work is narrative it is based on thoughts and their construction, questions and deliberations. Interestingly as time passes I find myself asking more questions than before, and finding less answers; nevertheless, the process of growth intrigues me. This is “One hundred years of opportunity”, a concept that has consumed me lately, based on the idea that human life itself stems from an equality of time, and is then left to the individual to direct it and construct it in a suitable productive fashion; everyone is given the same amount of time, and it is one of continuous possibilities for growth, understanding, and expansion in every aspect. Formally this piece is also on aluminum, it is centered around color and text, the text is enclosed within a real fingerprint, representing the portrait, the person, and the journey. For a large piece it would be powerful to develop a double print composition, each print at the extremities of the work and connected by a flow of color and reflection, elements such as inscription unifying the two, but faint enough to at times get lost in the paint, yet resurfacing sporadically to reestablish their relevance. True fingerprints with honest messages, indelibly etched into metal; the concept of relevance of thought always intrigued me. Traditionally portraiture had Men and Women side by side, and this recalls that, with the added bonus of space, a contemporary interpretation of the modern social dynamic if you will, together and yet distanced by the elements, but connected eternally by significant details. Thank you for your time, I look forward to future conversations. Cordially Karim Ghidinelli. “Art resembles life indeed. “