Welcome
lauraarte.com
TO
Laura Salgueiro Fontanals
Artist's Statement
I paint
because there is nothing through which I can combine my love for color with a tactile experience and create such an exciting, raw result. I am driven in a very primitive direction by a very instinctive force. Physical elements are as important as the visual.
To begin, I apply the base---sometimes gesso, sometimes plaster, sometimes both---by spilling or pallet knife but always at some point with my hands. I feel the need to touch it and feel the materials.
I do not envision a frame around my pieces. I leave them to go beyond their wooden construction. Some canvas extends from the piece, some textures continue beyond the edges as if the painting was torn from its own unending universe.
Not always satisfied with rectangles and squares,
I sometimes need to change the shapes of the pieces. I manipulate the canvas by layering, tearing and exposing the rough edges…mix colors, suspend colors, entwine colors by dragging a pallet knife instead of petting with a brush…letting the elements mix as they will within the water as it splatters over them, into the gesso crevasses and through the plaster waves…sometimes highlighting certain movement with gel medium, sometimes leaving bare canvas exposed.
Closure of a piece, when I know I am done, is when the movement is complete. Then I can step away and release it. What I hope the viewer will feel, whether consciously or not, is the flow of each piece, the feeling of completion, of a harmony within the initially chaotic.
Laura Salgueiro Fontanals