Barsky Gallery - RHYTHMS Exhibition by Karlee Mariel & Jorge Caligiuri
Mix & Mingle with the artists 6-8pm // Free, All Are Welcome!
R H Y T H M S is an exciting duo-art exhibition that will feature new work by artists Jorge Caligiuri and Karlee Mariel - This compelling pairing of artists inspires a unique combination of organic and geometric forms through textures and tactile surfaces.
Inspired by dynamic rhythms and patterns of motion observable within our environment, artists Mariel and Caligiuri explore the space that exists between the Natural world and our presence within it.
Organic and geometric forms stir the senses and carry the viewer through visual depths. Textures and tactile surfaces draw the eye from tension to harmony which expand and contract within the dynamic artworks.
This compelling pairing of artists inspires a unique combination of forces seen and unseen that exist within our environment, the natural world, and ultimately, ourselves.
New frescoes by Jorge Caligiuri
About Jorge Caligiuri
For this exhibition, Jorge Caligiuri has combined two different techniques, encaustic and fresco, to fragment the space in myriad ways with the line as the primary tool, and pattern and color playing important, supporting roles to express, as the artist states, “the interplay between what nature has created, and what man creates in organic environments”. In these large-scale works, Caligiuri is not afraid to push the boundaries of the mediums nor the potential conflict of marrying two disparate, long-standing schools of painting in a single installation.Encaustic painting is the older of the two techniques, dating back to ancient Greece. The word ‘enkaustikos’ in Greek means ‘to burn in’. This painting method involves working with pigmented, molten beeswax that, once it has been applied to the substrate, is fused with a torch in order to become permanent. Fresco was a technique that was widely used from the time of the Renaissance masters to paint churches and secular buildings. This technique used slaked pit lime and certain non-reactive pigments to avoid salts from forming on the surface which would erode the painting. Though the technique of encaustic painting has remained essentially the same over the centuries, the art of fresco painting has evolved and splintered into many different styles, and modern artists use it for both traditional and non-traditional work.
The power of Caligiuri’s paintings is not merely from the sense of scale of these pieces, nor is it from the respect of using such ancient mediums, but it is from the alchemy of the visions from his line, pattern, and color, the obvious textures created from these elements, and the sensual nature of the earthiness of the plaster, beeswax, and pigment, which brings to the viewer the essence of his works in a language that is constantly and iteratively being reinvented. ALFREDO RATINOF
Jorge Caligiuri is a non-objective artist who works primarily in fresco and encaustic. He was born in Rosario, Argentina. He attended the Prilidiano Pueyrredon National School of Fine Arts and the UBA Architecture University in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
New work by Karlee Mariel
About Karlee Mariel
Karlee Mariel is an award winning national and internationally recognized contemporary artist. Her creative techniques span a range of artistic mediums and explore experimental techniques both in painting and sculpture. Her unconventional approach to creating artwork mirrors her curiosity towards Nature, which often results in extraordinary movements that reveal themselves similar to patterns and forces found in the landscape of the natural world.
Her most recent body of work explores the observations of the dynamic beauty in the repeating, rhythmic patterns of form, motion and light present across our environment, found in the smallest of nature’s details, and within life itself. Karlee began her career in the late ‘90s as a young art student in Italy, studying the Italian Masters, classic oil portrait painting, and the human figure. “Inspired by Renaissance Masters whose work endured for centuries, I discovered my love of figure painting and the human form. What began with observations of the figure and flesh, over time evolved to observing Nature’s landscape, power and transformation she presents to us in the greater world.”
Her 20 year journey has taken her throughout the United States, Europe, Mexico and the Caribbean, while seeking cultural influences and history which shaped her world perspective and artwork. Karlee’s university education experience includes the Liceo Di Arte, Sardinia, Italy, Florence Academy, Universidad Nacional Autonomia de Mexico, Universidad de Mayaguez, Puerto Rico, Platt College of Graphic Design, Temple University Tyler School of Art, and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art in Philadelphia. Her experiences have brought Karlee notable experience as a participant, resident artist, and creative director in theatrical productions, mural commissions, and Art Student Leagues in Minneapolis, San Diego, Phoenix, Scottsdale, Denver, and New York.
Karlee’s most recent abstract body of work was exhibited at the New York Art Expo in 2017, Brooklyn and Jersey City, NJ. She returned last year to Denver, Colorado from the East Coast to establish her studio once again amongst majestic Rocky Mountains that greatly inspire her.
In Her Own Words... On the creative experience:
“I experience moments of profound clarity while working in my studio, wherein time dissolves and I am over taken with a stillness that is almost spiritual...if one looks closely and peers into the waves and rhythms of these abstract pieces, they can feel the energy that arises from the deep undercurrents of our senses.”