The thick paint and vibrant colors of Charisse Abellana’s palette knife work burn with her passion for art and for life. Fire in Diversity, Abellana’s solo show at the Latino Art Museum in Pomona, opening March 10th, offers a wide variety of the artist’s lush, rich works.
Abellana primarily paints images of nature, flowers that are fecund and bursting with beauty. The petals feel touchable and tactile, the blooms seem to plunge from the canvas, aching to break free of the surface that constrains them.
The artist also offers still-life images that are restrained and measured, yet vibrate with the same seductive color palette and textured paint that make the viewer imagine the scenes mutating into action. It is as if Abellana had created a film and “paused” the image, and viewers could at any moment expect the artist to press “play” once again.
It is this compelling quality of motion, in the light that illuminates her blossoms, in the poised perfection of her fruits and plates and tea cups -that elevate the artist’s work with passion.
Abellana is nothing if not passionate, and exuberant.
“Life is upon us today and our tomorrow is born from our now…let us make …an indelible mark…my indelible mark is my art,” she enthuses.
She is also a keen observer of the world around her, the colors that flicker in nature, the shadows and shifts.
“Perception is everything. Perception is how an individual sees one’s self as good or bad, kind or evil, a victim or a survivor, a success or a failure,” she notes.
As a first generation immigrant with a Filipino and Spanish heritage, Abellana is driven to excel in the present and preserve the richness of her past. The artist first taught herself to draw by tracing the imprint of her father’s fashion drawings at age 4; always fiercely driven, she’s painted professionally since 2002, and in the past two years renewed her commitment to her art, through which she expresses her most personal emotions.
She posits the question “How could a flower or a pear be a picture of past pain, past struggle?” and answers herself with “…it is that thick palette knife stroke of the boldest colors of paint that is the expression of … fire!”
Abellana’s glowing, fully realized floral depictions exude life, which for the artist means that her works are intense, freeing, and rebellious. She believes that an artist needs both passion and pain to create. She’s chosen to be bold and free, she says, where others would hold back.
Working with a palette knife is an intrinsic part of her process, one in which “you never know if the next stroke will make or break a painting.”
She says she loves working with a knife – one gets the impression that she loves the challenge, the decisiveness, and the boldness of her technique. She was moved to adapt knife work after traveling in Peru and observing the techniques of a working artist there.
Abellana says each knife stroke can have an unexpected result, and that sense of surprise and wonder is one that she embraces. “There is always that moment of emotional upheaval every time I put a stroke.”
Working in oils, her layered knife technique creates a kind of sculptural and dimensional element to her images. She paints the sides of her canvases, creating a complete art work from all angles. The artist works by painting wet on wet with her oils. And as to her colors: she’s trained to mix her own, and can imagine any rainbow of combinations and translate her vision to the canvas via her fast flying knife, her elegant thrusts shaping images that offer delight, dreaminess, and yes, fire.
Catch the warm glow for yourself March 10th, when Abellana’s solo show reception takes place from 4 to 9 p.m. Curated by Dulce Stein, the exhibition runs through March 30th, and is on display at the museum’s Grand Salon West.
The Latino Art Museum is located at 281 S. Thomas St., Suites 104 and 105 in Pomona. The exhibition is a part of the 14th annual Women International Show.
Genie Davis; photos provided by the artist