Charisse Abellana loves color. And flowers. With work that blossoms like the real thing, Abellana creates incandescent, fully realized floral depictions that are as delicately rendered as the work of Jan Brueghel the Elder, as thick and rich as the roses that Henri Fantin-Latour painted.
Abellana’s Colors, now at the Topanga Canyon Gallery through October 30th, includes her most recent body of work, 12 8 x 8 individual flowers, with paint so layered and tactile that the blooms seem to leap off the canvas. Along with these smaller pieces is a vast piece, My Poppies Twelve Years Hence, an exuberant bouquet whose vivid hues pop off a serene blue and white background.
Not only are the colors intense, but it is the thickness of Abellana’s paint that draws the eye, and creates the illusion of actual petals. What drew Abellana to her art? While she has painted professionally since 2002, it was only in the past six months that her art took on a fiery new dimension and purpose for her. According to the artist, it was a sea change in her personal life that renewed and expanded her passion.
“I ended an addictive relationship,” she attests. “And I contemplated what to do with my life. I decided to work on my paintings. The pieces I created in this show are looser, the strokes are looser, because I felt freer to express myself.” Abellana believes that “an artist needs pain to create. I work with a palette knife, and with those knife strokes, you never know if the next stroke will make or break a painting. If I had not gone through a life changing experience, transcended the relationship I was in, I would not have been able to be so free or so bold.”
In this show, are other paintings with a tea-time theme, such as her large scale “High Tea with Andrea.” Unlike her current work, these pieces are more muted in color palette, more delicate in terms of the application of paint. “Those pieces are softer, more romantic,” she notes.
At the time, she thought of the idea of a tea as a theme. “I was in a tea shop on Sherman Way in the Valley, and I picked up a mismatched tea cup and plate and put them together. They looked so beautiful. I realized you could mix and match these items, the flowers, and create something beautiful. I was so struck by the idea that for a time I started a tea party business, giving parties. Setting up the parties and exploring how the settings would look influenced me a great deal.”
While Abellana has always been a palette knife artist, her past works have not had the sweeping style and intensity of her Poppies series.
“I love working with the knife. Years ago, I was so moved by an artist whose work I saw while traveling in Peru who used these techniques, I knew that was the technique I wanted to employ.” According to Abellana, palette knife paintings are “unexpected, almost irreverent…there is always that moment of emotional upheaval every time I put a stroke. The paint thus becomes a sculptural element on canvas.”
Along with her commitment to palette knife technique, Abellana is also focused on using oils rather than acrylic paint in her works on canvas.
“I like the richness and shine of oil. It’s rich in a way acrylic can’t be. I also like to paint wet on wet,” she states. “Acrylic dries right away, but with oil, it stays wet, and you can layer wet on wet, which creates a whole different feel to a painting. I had to master the ability to do it,” she says, “painting wet on wet is hard to master. But I love doing it. In Van Gogh paintings you see colors you do not think would be there, and when you step back it becomes all one, it becomes complete. That is a part of that wet on wet technique.”
While she has worked in other mediums, oil remains her first choice, captivated by what she calls the “thrilling element of surprise” in painting wet on wet. “I love painting layers and layers of paint that make it more exhilarating. I love painting the sides of the thick canvas because viewing it from the side is also art in itself. Once I am done, the painting is a finished piece of art, with or without a frame,” she remarks.
Trained to mix her own colors, the artist believes she can imagine any color or combination of colors and put it on the canvas directly from her imagination to her knife.
What does the future hold for Abellana? “I want my art to show in all four corners of the world. I want it to inspire people. Art lifts us above the ugliness in the world, and I think creating art, that is my purpose in life, to elevate others, to inspire. I want to get to a place where I can truly reach that goal.”
Abellana’s work will be exhibited through October 30th at the Topanga Canyon Gallery 120 S Topanga Canyon Blvd. in Topanga.
- Genie Davis; photos: Jack Burke