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Her technique and influences firmly established in the Baroque and Victorian eras, Teresa Oaxaca assimilates and interprets elements from other periods in art history to fashion her modern—and exuberant—worldview. EXCESSTHE ART OF By Judith Fairly “My work is about pleasing the eye,” says Teresa Oaxaca. Indeed, though her oeuvre includes conventional portraits in charcoal and oil and straightforward still lifes, Oaxaca’s portfolio is dominated by large canvases where every centimeter is !lled with a riotous array of objects (many from her collection of antique dolls, Venetian masks, nutcrackers, china teapots and skulls that have become repertory players in these paintings) and her trademark cascade of flowers in full bloom strewn carelessly around a central !gure, which is often costumed in period attire and makeup. At !rst glance, these paintings seem like an amusement park for the eye. With time for contemplation, however, the visual overload, the unusual pairing of objects and !gures, the high-key saturated pigments and hyper- expressive subjects in sometimes inelegant poses !nd a deeper reso- nance with traditional realism, albeit a slightly transgressive version OPPOSITE: Venetian Carnival of what one might !nd among the old masters on a museum wall. (oil on canvas, 60x40) MAY 2017 3 DREAMS & DOLLS ings. The dolls in her paintings are from ABOVE: The Party (oil The genesis of Oaxaca’s singular style was a cal- her own collection from 19th-century on canvas, 38x56) endar of Michelangelo’s frescos she saw around France and Germany. Th RIGHT: Standing the age of 5 that left her daydreaming about the “ ese dolls contain the spirit of another Pierrot (oil on Sistine Chapel; further inspiration was provided age and some have witnessed a period canvas, 60x34) by a Leonardo da Vinci exhibition when she of art history very dear to me,” she says. was 13 and, by the age of 15, she was think- In 2012, she embarked on a four month ing of an art career. Oaxaca often wears period self-guided Grand Tour of the art capitals of Europe—visiting clothing that she has made or found online, not Budapest, Stockholm, Madrid, Prague, Vienna, Amsterdam, and as an affectation or as an element of perfor- Berlin. She views her activity in the studio as recording her expe- mance art but as an integral and seamless aspect rience and travel provides “narrative” to her work. of her life as an artist. She is enamored of 19th- Shunning “photographic paint application,” Oaxaca’s paint- century art and craftsmanship, of historical erly style is consonant with her belief that !gural representation architecture, of Old World traditions and influ- and realism were at their peak during the Baroque and Victorian ences. She inhabits her work. She lives among eras, though she was inspired to paint the !gure by Italian paint- the objects that make their way into her paint- ers of the Renaissance. Other influences: William Adolphe Baroque: a style of art and architecture of the 17th and 18th century, Nurtured by the Catholic Church during the Counter- Reformation, it depicted religious themes in a dramatic, dynamic and sensually rich style. (Baroque painting in Northern Europe was less concerned with religious subject matter.) Advancements in science and philosophy gave rise to an interest in the natural world, and landscape paintings cast humans in a secondary role to nature. Baroque architecture conveyed grandeur through massive scale and elaborate ornamentation. (Baroque is not to be confused with Rococo, which refers to ornate and sometimes excessive embellishment in the decorative arts.) 4 artistsmagazine.com LESSONS IN CRAFT by Teresa Oaxaca Organizing the the past I used a dry Palette warm brown or cool gray mid-tone; now I I prefer to lay out also use Maya blue. my colors from light When beginning an to dark and warm to alla prima painting cool. I’ve become or one-day sketch, used to this arrange- I prefer to rub raw ment, so I can send umber or Maya blue my brush or palette onto the canvas and knife to the appropri- then paint a medium ate pile for mixing heavy wash over the without having to entire canvas. I then think about it too start working directly consciously, thus into that application. freeing my mind for I find that I can rub drawing and for work- out my lights easily ing on values. and not commit, in the beginning stages, Earth Colors to any sharp lines that would distract I use a large num- me later. This method ber of earth colors, also helps me to umbers and lead work in terms of pigments. The earth mass, because I can pigments, as well use light and dark to as the oils that bind sculpt the features them, have quick dry- broadly. I don’t stay ing times. at this stage for long; after about half an In Darkness Visible hour to an hour, I am ready for color. My palette has been getting larger and Unifying Color brighter, in part due to all my colorful Using color on a props like flowers slightly wet and raw and fabrics and face umber-toned surface paint, but also to a also has the advan- change in style from tage, at least for me, tenebrism (from of giving my paint the Italian tenbroso, something to work murky and the Latin into and “overcome.” tenebrae, darkness), I find that I tend to denoting a style key my lights and of painting of pro- chromas very high nounced chiaroscuro, and that the slightly to a more direct swampy underpaint- approach, wherein ing brings them back I build color, not down to earth and by glazing, but by gives all the colors heavier applications a unity that is only of paint. apparent when I Bouguereau (1825-1905), Aimé Nicolas Morot (1850-1913), compare the work to Antonio Mancini (1852-1930), John Singer Sargent (1856-1925) Underpainting another similar pose and Gustav Klimt (1862-1918). Oaxaca has said in interviews done straight onto a that her evolution from the atelier to her own painting style I like to work on oil dry surface. primed canvas. In was affected by the 1987 !lm Alice, a surrealistic adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, by the Czech !lmmaker Jan Svankmayer. As is the case with surrealism, Oaxaca’s paint- More information on Teresa Oaxaca’s palette ings often convey viewers to a dreamlike plane where identity is and materials at www.naturalpigments.com/art- unmoored, leaving the viewer to question what is real. She views supply-education/teresa-oaxaca-palette/ MAY 2017 5 the dolls as “little personalities” who play a sup- and Carnivale” paintings. In Taberna (In ABOVE: Yule (oil on porting role to the subject; in paintings such the Tavern) is the second of three parts in canvas, 60x40) as The Dollmaker and The Sleepwalker (at teres- Carmina Burana, a favorite in the classical OPPOSITE TOP: aoaxaca.com), however, humans and dolls have music repertoire based on bawdy drink- Summertime (oil on interchangeable roles. “Dolls and miniature ing songs attributed to the ordo vagorum, canvas, 46x32) human sculptures go back a very long way into traveling clerical students/scholars from the roots of human civilization,” she notes. “So the Middle Ages who wrote “vagabond much psychology, design, and craftsmanship songs” celebrating excess in all things. In paintings like Night have gone into these artifacts.” The inanimate Scene, Oaxaca’s raging and intoxicated subjects give expression to objects she incorporates among her !gures also Orff’s “Estuans Interius”—a “burning inside.” By contrast, her function as symbols whose meaning is ambigu- cheerier versions of clowns—which she regards as both “timeless” ous, open to interpretation. artifacts of the Baroque era with their powdered faces and also vestigial !gures with roots in commedia dell’arte and the carnival CARNIVALE & CARMINA BURANA tradition—allow her to explore the commonality of human emo- Oaxaca is a versatile painter with a solid foun- tion. In paintings like Laughing Queen (page xx) Oaxaca blurs the dation in classical atelier technique acquired social divide between nobility and commoner, what she cheekily over four years in Italy at the Angel Academy refers to as her “Aristocrat/Clown genre.” and the Florence Academy, followed by a year- long apprenticeship with Odd Nerdrum in ART HISTORICAL INFLUENCES Norway. A recent series, In Taberna, inspired by “I paint light,” says Oaxaca, “using multiple layers to build a con- a performance of Carl Orff’s cantata Carmina vincing illusion.” The setup is an important component of her pro- Burana, includes lush, romantic paintings with cess; she meticulously arranges her subjects and props to create a a darker palette, the yin to the yang of Oaxaca’s composition that is both planned (using her familiar repertory of high-chroma and celebratory “Neo-Baroque objects) and spontaneous. She prefers a naturalist approach—the 6 artistsmagazine.com MATERIALS BASIC PALETTE: RUBLEV COLOURS ARTIST OILS: ultramarine blue (green shade), antica green earth, lemon ochre, chrome yellow primrose, lead-tin yel- low dark, orange molybdate, Pozzuoli red, vermilion, alizarin crimson, cyprus umber raw dark, lead white #1, bone black EXTENDED PALETTE: Maya blue, cobalt chromite blue, Verona green earth, French umber OTHER COLORS: WINSOR & NEWTON: cadmium yellow medium, diyoxazine purple MICHAEL HARDING: cadmium red deep OLD HOLLAND OR GAMBLIN: viridian MEDIUMS: Oleogel, expoxide oil, aged refined linseed oil, Rublesol (odorless mineral spirits) Washington Baroque (oil on canvas, xxxx)s (aka “Man With A Pipe”), a wink at my new Washington, DC-inspired series of locals, will be on view at The Arts Club of SURFACES: Claessens oi- primed linen Washington, starting in November 2017.