Chasing
Waterfalls
A Chat with Mariella Bisson
By
Ross RicePetPeter
Aaron
But
what is very interesting about the new pieces is that the
shapes are starting to gravitate away from realism toward
the abstract, while maintaining an earthy realness. This is
not your Grandma’s landscape painting. You find yourself
having to move further back to see the“original”
image, which is intentional. This is where Mariella’s
drawing skill, underpinning the work, serves her well. Still,
Mariella admits, “When you stand up close, they fracture
apart, as if you were looking at a kaleidoscope. I just hope
that there’s more to see every time you look at it,
just catch something a little different. I don’t rush
through them, I take my time, I mean, it’s serious.
To some people’s eyes it’s perhaps too academic,
but I had academic training. I studied drawing with a guy
that studied with a guy, who studied with a guy, who studied
with Raphael. You know, there’s a straight line right
down there [through history,] so I really believe in drawing,
and taking your time, and making the thing a quality object.”
This
approach, as well as a savvy understanding of the grant/residency
aspect of long-term artistic survival, has generally brought
Mariella continuing success, but she has multiple facets to
her personal artistic expression. One such aspect is her Xenophobia
Ruburbia series, a personal expression of outrage, juxtaposing
animal skulls over captions that pair local animal ‘pests,’
such as white-tail deer and black bears, with prejudicial
quotations overheard uttered locally in reference to migrant
workers and recent immigrants. In another recent series, “Times
Have Changed,” shown in a small Knoxville gallery, she
re-assembles words and phrases from front page headlines (on
page one) to create seemingly absurd headlines that really
aren’t that much more absurd that the originals. But,
these are mostly diversions from her main focus, which continues
to be an ongoing conversation with the natural world...CONTINUE...
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