Vicky Barranguet & Isabel Turban “Here And There”

Artemisa

[Image: Vicky Barranguet "Nothing Grows in a Straight Line" (2018) Acrylic on canvas 32 x 48 in.]

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Artemisa Gallery presents Here and There, a duo show of acrylic and mixed media paintings by Uruguayan artists, Vicky Barranguet and Isabel Turban.

For this newsletter, both Vicky Barranguet and Isabel Turban answered two questions about their inspirations and Latin American influences in their work. Their responses provide insight about their work, finding the seeds from which their artistic expression grows.

What inspires you? What drives you to paint?

Vicky Barranguet:

Life, music, kids, food, friends, emotions, events! Everyday events, in the world in general, and those around me. Painting is an expression of the moment that I am living, with a sum of emotions from life experiences.I started painting when I got married, to a musician, so music has inspired me since the beginning. Music, rhythm, and harmony shows in my compositions on the canvas.

Isabel Turban:

My abstract paintings are inspired by nostalgia and transformation. In my work, I try to revisit places that may no longer be there, always returning to them with novelty. Through layers of gestural images, strokes, and traces of charcoal and ink, the paintings I create represent my own idyllic albeit inexistent space. At the end, the physical places often diffuse and become rather unimportant as they are simply an inspiration, a spontaneous dialogue where each accident moves the painting forward.

My work’s narrative may lead to multiple interpretations. The wide view is an open invitation to get closer and get lost in the details, to find the power and beauty of small things. My urban representations attempt to highlight the aspects of creation and destruction that occur when we modify our environment within the natural context that surrounds us. I try to cross those boundaries, to show both sides of that equation.

Do you feel art is local (culture, local people, places, etc.) or is it a global expression? Does your Latin American origin have an impact on your work?

Vicky Barranguet:

I see art as a global language that transcends frontiers and all differences among people and cultures. It affects different people in different ways, it talks directly to the soul. It touches your heart or not.I am Latin American, and it would be impossible that my culture wouldn’t affect my work. In the same way as living in New York for half of my life, shows in my art. For me art is an expression of who you are, affected by your circumstances, believes, culture, how and where you live, but it reaches out with no boundaries, so it has a global reach.

Isabel Turban:

I paint from past experiences of travel and living abroad. I also get inspiration from my present concerns, pleasures, and activism. Having grown up in Uruguay and Argentina, the concept of immigration is always present in my work as the result of my personal experience. However, I invite the viewer to have their own perspective, to embark on their own journey and to relate to my work in a new, personal manner. As much as my art has its own identity, my hope is that its language is so vast and generous that it can involve everyone.