Nina Fazio
Artist Statement
I have always been fascinated by people and the different “faces” they wear depending where they are or who they are with. Anonymity, death, and sexuality have always been common themes in my work. Colour and pattern are also very important facets of my work.
There are pieces from two separate series in this show. In the first series I dealt with the topic of death. This series was heavily influenced by the Mexican cultural celebration the Day of the Dead and I quickly became obsessed after experienced great loss and absence in my personal life. I recontextualized these sugar skull ideas into my own interpretation and developed my idea of masks or the ‘faces’ people wear. The death masks became a way for me to express how death can affect individuals and assisted in depicting how people carry so much of themselves and the ones they’ve lost in their bodies and facial expressions. In this body of work I dealt with having the mask present on the face and latter dealing with the mask’s absence completely.
In my newest work I’ve been using kaleidoscopic line work mixed with bands of colour cutting through simple line portraiture to suggest a hidden inner expression beneath. My new research focuses on colour psychology and colours effect on people, whether colour can convey tone or depict feelings, mood and emotion in a piece and its impact on the viewer.
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