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Clara Fialho takes the notion of what is rebirth and translates it into both a surreal and magic landscape, but like Botticelli and his Primavera, the interpretation is not always ready at hand, causing the viewer to actually have to look at the work and decipher the artist’s intent. Fialho known for her explosion of color and shapes which bubble across the canvas, still adheres to tenets set down by the Renaissance masters, once again likening her works, albeit contemporary, to practices set down centuries before she first picked up a brush.
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Clara Fialho. Worried Shoes, 2014. Oil on Canvas. 60 × 96 in.
One of the rules Fialho adheres to is balance and proportion, which is clearly seen in Worried Shoes, a piece that compositionally likens itself to Boticelli’s - the action is confined to the center of the canvas, but both have objects or shapes that escape the central view.
Because we are firmly in the contemporary world, and Fialho is not a figurative artist - to interpret the work, the view must adopt the language of the piece, which is this case is - color.
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In the Renaissance works were understood by a conglomeration of biblical and mystical texts, but we have traveled from there through the Enlightenment, to Realism, Surrealism, Modernism, Post Modernism, Deconstruction, Contemporary and more - in all of those movements, and others, we have learned through the complex theories marrying artistic practices with Philosophy, Psychology, Psychiatry, Cultural Studies and color is used as the language and the symbolism of the color enables an initial understanding of the piece.
But given that, to fully understand from an informed perspective one cannot assume, for example that yellow is the color of happiness, it may be, and may be associated with the sun, but one has to accept that it is the sun that instigates destruction.
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Clara Fialho. Untitled #329, 2016. Watercolor, and Pencil on Paper. 10 × 13 in.
Looking at the palette of Fialho’s work in this light might bring one to think the works are not optimistic, look at the color associations, but Fialho controls that by the shapes she creates, which trap these colors in the shape, which is also the moment and in so doing, she like Keats is able to obtain immortality for these colors as they can never move out of their form, they can never change from their true and positive quality, they are forever blue, forever yellows, pinks, etc - they, through Fialho are rendered eternally optimistic, pure and full of opportunity.
— Melanie Prapopoulos
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