Marie Kazalia

Currently exhibiting at the Hotel des Arts, 447 Bush Street, San Francisco, CA 94108

curated painting exhibit, by curator Leo Madrid of S.C.R.E.A.MInc http://www.ScreamInc.net

I am a USA born artist (BFA, California College of Arts) working most often on canvas, paper and panel, with the multiple possibilities of poured paints (aka Process painting). The formal possibilities of my use of color layers and tones, different artist paints and the resulting surface texture are achieved by varying the paint flow, paint run overlaps, and by providing flow interference. The paint runs take form in layering and surface patterns.  My art school textile design coursework influences remain in the recurring patterning in my paintings. Close-up gives the vantage point of the pleasure of the painterly poured paint run intermingled with my elements of patterning, Asemic writing and acrylic image transfers, often resulting in a combined realism and abstraction built up on my support in a dense bricolage. Asemic writing consists of written language forms that are reminiscent of written language characters yet are unreadable as writing, thus straddling the line between the visual and the textual. My Asemic writing is informed by my formal language studies of written and conversational Mandarin Chinese at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, China, and from language studies and expatriate living in Tokyo, Japan and in India, also often referencing everyday product package lettering as well. My high contrast mixed use of Day-Glo to earth color compositions are, in some instances, responses to the Japanese use of color from ancient to recent Pop aesthetics. Color influences of Japan, India and China and the forms of the written characters of the languages of these countries, as well those elements in  other Asian countries I visited for shorter periods--Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea--reemerge in newly abstracted and combined forms, in conjunction with English typefaces of my native language.  Translucent and transparent  overlays of color contain the opacity of the drawn stroke. Working with written characters, cutting up, abstracting, juxtaposing Asian language characters and signs together visually,--sometimes over, sometimes under poured paint, or even sandwiched between layers. I will also often incorporate  images from my camera printed and used as acrylic image transfers. Other  images on paper that I’ve collected and held on to for 7-8 or more years, some more recently found, become  my high contrast image transfers. Often I will make still images with my camera while watching vintage b & w films capturing individual frames or overlapping and combined images within frame transitions. My subject matter imagery for these acrylic image transfers tends to center around vintage film,  holiday symbols/iconography, and commercial product packaging. Resulting in surprisingly varied results per canvas with the repetition of these techniques and recurring interests of form. Each canvas contains traces of what is significant to me, the artist. My personal progress, growth, shift, changes, expansions, forward motion, accumulation of thought and work day upon day at various levels, and contained within the layers of the paintings, as idea and form merge with the spirituality of practice.