“Finding the right balance;  how do you achieve that?”  - Fabricated Intimacy

 It didn’t take long after I relocated to Los Angeles to understand the importance of finding a balance between every day hustle and bustle and the tranquility needed to reenergize one’s body and soul.

 What I didn’t realize was that the search to understand and achieve this balance would become the focus of my work for years to come.

 One of my main observations was that no matter how big the city was, the relationships and connections that existed with others was far closer and minute than I ever imagined.

CONNECTIVITY and CINERGY – my last two series – focused mainly on the small degree that distances us from one another, where I started using shapes, lines and color that would repeat themselves and create subtle connections between works, telling a story that one could follow looking at the whole series.

In FABRICATED INTIMACY, I look at the other side of this balance. How does one create barriers in order to escape the day to day madness that can exist in densely populated cities?

It became gradually more apparent to me that people’s homes were their sanctuaries, their cocoon. I realized that most LA urbanites created their own little world, minimizing interaction, and protecting their privacy, contrary to the impression I’d always had of LA being an endless, sociable hub. And whether that materialized itself in form of families, individuals living together or on their own, it didn’t really matter;  the same phenomenon was happening.

In this series, I wanted to minimize the composition, still pulling abstract forms, but eliminating some of the gestures and movement of the last series, that which connected us with the others.

By concentrating on the more geometric shapes, minimal amount of color, and focusing on the negative space within the work, I could portray the various sorts of isolation created, THE FABRICATED INTIMACY.

The background (negative space) became most important. By using brush strokes and layering of various colors, I could create worlds that you either looked into or that came out at you and exposed themselves; each different, each representing its own intimacy.

I started using shapes and colors to represent what was happening behind the walls. Some appear more whimsical than others, some more austere, some calmer and others completely calculated. Sometimes they’re unfinished, just enough to show imperfections within the walls created. This not only appeared on the canvas but also in the technique I used to achieve that. It changed the way I looked at a blank canvas and the way I proceeded to paint. Much more calculated than ever, very little was left to happenstance.

Colors were brought together to create a certain energy; sometimes colors you would not necessarily associate with others. Shapes were put in, moved and moved again to create the distinct minimal environment I was trying to convey.

I have learned over the years to trust my gut. Errors or miscalculations will happen. But how you react to them is what will bring a more intense experience and eventually stronger work. End result might be different than first planned but these calculated moves are actually what became these fabricated intimate environments.

Like the people living in their intimate surroundings, changes are allowed and often necessary as we all react to events and/or feelings on a daily basis. Again, these reactions are not negative; they simply happen. They are created, fabricated to better our own worlds.