Friday, March 23, 2012

New York Graphic Design firm | Alfalfa Studio » This Weekend ...

Apart, encaustic on board 40x30

This weekend New York City hosts Artexpo New York, the world’s largest fine art trade show. Over its 33-year history, Artexpo New York has hosted many of the world’s most renowned artists, including Andy Warhol, Peter Max, Robert Rauschenberg, Robert Indiana, Keith Haring and Leroy Neiman.

We are excited to introduce you to the work of artist Georgia Nassikas, one of the standout artists at this international art expo.

We first met Mrs. Nassikas when approached for the design of a book. The instant we received the first image, we knew we had something special. We immediately fell in love not only to her delicate use of color and her exquisite compositions, but also with the incredible textures she creates. Georgia is an artist and a beekeeper, in fact, outside Georgia’s window are blue and yellow beehives that produce the encaustic medium she paints with. It was after Georgia saw Jasper Johns’ encaustics at the National Gallery that she began to mix hot beeswax from her hives with mineral pigments, damar and oil sticks, applying it boards and creating semi-abstracted, planar compositions with richly textured surfaces.

Offshore Light encausticon board 38x42

Her mastery became more evident while editing the images for the book (we’ll share it in another post). But, techniques and skills aside, what would art be if it doesn’t have soul? What would art be if it doesn’t communicate at a higher level? What would art be if it doesn’t have the power to make you feel something?

When I see her paintings I have similar feelings as when I see the work of J. M. W. Turner. There is something there —perhaps the combination of colors, abstract landscapes, shapes and textures— that has the power to move me, to take me to fantastic places, to imagine stories happening in a different world.

Beginnings, encaustic on panel 24x24

If you are in New York City this weekend, don’t miss Mrs. Nassikas at the Artexpo New York. Or more of her work can be seen in the artist’s website.

For now, enjoy our selection and we leave you with the artist’s statement:

Raised on the Rhode Island coast and classically trained in art and design in Boston and Florence, Georgia Nassikas works out of her studio in McLean, creating reflective modern images in wax and oil. Her artistic process allows for luminous, textured, complex surfaces that deepen and enliven her images: an interplay of elemental form and color, the crossing of the representational with the abstract, the geometry of angles and shadows, and the light of a lifting sky. Georgia’s work is in private and public collections in the United States, Europe, and Australia. She recently has exhibited at Gallery 555dc, McLean Project for the Arts, The Art League in VA, and the Jamestown Arts Center in RI.

Looking Out Together, encaustic on board 27x24

Into the White, encaustic on board 8x10

Rising, oil on canvas 48x36

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