Abstract Vibration, Vital Energy
Friday, 07 March 2014 10:44
Written by Dra. Olga María Rodríguez Bolufé, 2011 Art teacher and researcher
As an artist, Claudia Catelli's defining feature is constant restlessness. As a result, her work escapes any stylistic or formal classification. She is a creator who always surprises, searching irrepressibly, wanting to experiment and experience art as a part of existence itself.
It seems a paradox that this kind of artists could be technically trained to the standards of architecture, at the Masters’ degree level, which confirms that a talented artist eludes norms and prejudice.
In addition, Catelli’s identification with Russian-Brazilian artist Clarice Lispector and novelist, poet and playwright Marguerite Yourcenar, of Belgian-French extraction, makes her universe of references appears a complex, subtle and intriguing web. Indeed, her work is closely linked to the concerns, identities and experiences of the two writers. As Yourcenar wrote, “You have to listen to the head, but let the heart speak”, while Lispector would exclaim “That which was pure spirit becomes a true body”, recognizing that only language can express the unsayable. Catelli coincides with their vision, taking a similar position in relation to life and creation, as part of her need to express herself and create visual proposals using techniques and materials.
The work of Japanese-Brazilian artist Tomie Ohtake is another of Catelli’s references. The force of the gesture and expressivity of the patches of color on a canvas, panel or even a wall reveal that they both share the need to paint what comes from inside, beyond reproducing the outside world. As Ohtake says, “Everything has an essence in harmony in the universe; the artist’s role is to reveal it”. Both artists undertake this from their respective interior, subjective worlds, as women and humans in the world, to which the language of abstraction is very suited. They knew each other personally during their university studies and Catelli admits that the well-established artist’s work’s had a great impact on her, inspiring the same commitment.
The work of these writers and artists and that of contemporary designers, together with her insatiable need to continue learning about Latin American and Caribbean art, provide an insight into Catelli’s particularly interdisciplinary universe of references.
It can be a challenge to critically assess the creations of such a versatile artist; however, meeting her dispels many of her doubts. Catelli has a demanding, forceful temperament, always acting with passion and dedication, and believing deeply in her profession. She has experimented with many techniques: collage, etchings, painting, installations and video, and each of these experiences is defined by her sharp curiosity.
Her receptiveness to numerous influences and experiences is clearly a product of her multicultural roots, similar to those of Yourcenar, Lispector and Ohtake, with ancestors who left Europe for Brazil before reaching Mexico, which she considers her second homeland.
Abstraction guides Catelli’s visual searches. The patches of paint colliding and sliding across the canvas, the expressive use of color and the rhythm of textures create a universe of inexhaustible visual suggestions, which keeps us immersed in an active process as spectators but also co-authors, accomplices of the artist.
These patches of color are undoubtedly the strongest feature of these pieces, involving light, shadow, pigment and above all gesture. In them, an insatiable creative spirit vibrates, galloping and spreading across the surface, appearing to move intuitively. Yet there is a basic discipline of composition, promising us a certain ending. It is at that moment that the viewer is deeply moved by the genuine vocation of this artist, who shares with us a visual poetry in the constant process of becoming.
As an artist, Claudia Catelli's defining feature is constant restlessness. As a result, her work escapes any stylistic or formal classification. She is a creator who always surprises, searching irrepressibly, wanting to experiment and experience art as a part of existence itself.
It seems a paradox that this kind of artists could be technically trained to the standards of architecture, at the Masters’ degree level, which confirms that a talented artist eludes norms and prejudice.
In addition, Catelli’s identification with Russian-Brazilian artist Clarice Lispector and novelist, poet and playwright Marguerite Yourcenar, of Belgian-French extraction, makes her universe of references appears a complex, subtle and intriguing web. Indeed, her work is closely linked to the concerns, identities and experiences of the two writers. As Yourcenar wrote, “You have to listen to the head, but let the heart speak”, while Lispector would exclaim “That which was pure spirit becomes a true body”, recognizing that only language can express the unsayable. Catelli coincides with their vision, taking a similar position in relation to life and creation, as part of her need to express herself and create visual proposals using techniques and materials.
The work of Japanese-Brazilian artist Tomie Ohtake is another of Catelli’s references. The force of the gesture and expressivity of the patches of color on a canvas, panel or even a wall reveal that they both share the need to paint what comes from inside, beyond reproducing the outside world. As Ohtake says, “Everything has an essence in harmony in the universe; the artist’s role is to reveal it”. Both artists undertake this from their respective interior, subjective worlds, as women and humans in the world, to which the language of abstraction is very suited. They knew each other personally during their university studies and Catelli admits that the well-established artist’s work’s had a great impact on her, inspiring the same commitment.
The work of these writers and artists and that of contemporary designers, together with her insatiable need to continue learning about Latin American and Caribbean art, provide an insight into Catelli’s particularly interdisciplinary universe of references.
It can be a challenge to critically assess the creations of such a versatile artist; however, meeting her dispels many of her doubts. Catelli has a demanding, forceful temperament, always acting with passion and dedication, and believing deeply in her profession. She has experimented with many techniques: collage, etchings, painting, installations and video, and each of these experiences is defined by her sharp curiosity.
Her receptiveness to numerous influences and experiences is clearly a product of her multicultural roots, similar to those of Yourcenar, Lispector and Ohtake, with ancestors who left Europe for Brazil before reaching Mexico, which she considers her second homeland.
Abstraction guides Catelli’s visual searches. The patches of paint colliding and sliding across the canvas, the expressive use of color and the rhythm of textures create a universe of inexhaustible visual suggestions, which keeps us immersed in an active process as spectators but also co-authors, accomplices of the artist.
These patches of color are undoubtedly the strongest feature of these pieces, involving light, shadow, pigment and above all gesture. In them, an insatiable creative spirit vibrates, galloping and spreading across the surface, appearing to move intuitively. Yet there is a basic discipline of composition, promising us a certain ending. It is at that moment that the viewer is deeply moved by the genuine vocation of this artist, who shares with us a visual poetry in the constant process of becoming.