"To make art with all the questions answered deprives the viewer of the joy of participating in the act of creation, the joy of discovery.. The choices I make between figuration and abstraction, between what is implied and what is revealed, serve to pull the viewer into the paintings surface and leave them with questions. I strive for emotional honesty in my work and rely on an intuitive sense of color and an immeadiacy of gesture to achieve it. My work is about transforming the mistake. In my process, I re-use old canvases, working into layers of paint, actively"damaging" the surface to give each painting a history. My paintings seek to express the tension between chaos and order, between control of ones medium and knowing when to let go. I strive to affirm a more authentic concept of beauty while making paintings that express an evocation of mystery."

BIOGRAPHY

Georgianne Fastaia was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1964. She graduated Magna Cum Laude from San Francisco State University in 1988 with a degree in Creative Writing. Self-taught, she began painting in 2001. Her mother, an art teacher is her inspiration. She encouraged her children to follow their passion and to take art seriously. Georgianne works out of The Art Explosion Studios in San Francisco and supports her latest creation, daughter Sophie, through her work.

STATEMENT FOR FIGURATIVE SERIES

I am interested in telling a story through color and gesture.For me the figure holds the greatest possibility for creating moments where  the viewer can respond.I have given each painting its own “history” through a distressing process of scrubbing, scraping and wiping away paint to reveal shadows and faded colors. These ghosts of underlying imagery buried below layers of paint, visually communicate abstract concepts of impermanence and fragility.

STATEMENT FOR FLOOD SERIES

The Floating City: New Orleans after the Flood paintings about the longing for home

In 2006, I responded to Hurricane Katrina with my series, After the Flood. In this new series The Floating City, the impossibility of painting the physical reality of the flood allowed me to focus on the emotional reality. My primary goal is to convey the despair many felt upon seeing the devastation.I use a palette of somber violets, green-grays and translucent layers of milky color to convey the quality of light after a storm, the thick saturated air, and a mood of quiet desolation that I recall growing up along the Connecticut shore.