Whether looking at asphalt road repairs, broken ice sheets on a river, a mended seam on a garment or a mangled wire on a trash heap I marvel at those “unintended” compositions.

Aesthetic interpretations of vulnerability and decay combined with the bare essence of shape and texture have always been at the core of my work.

A fascination with the process of nature’s corrosive elements as well as unearthing what lies beneath the surface has spilled into my creative path of painting.

Spare in its palette, much of my painting is created with layers of acrylic paint, ink, mixed media and collage.
I have always liked to disturb surfaces. Disrupting the perception of harmony and discovering new meanings within the concepts and ideas of composition are meaningful to me. Through digging back into the layers, disturbing and exposing previous visual thoughts, a compositional dialog emerges telling the story of the painting.

I prefer to speak through line, shape and color. In that order. Lines infiltrate and insinuate. They follow and they lead. They reflect what I absorb and what I see everywhere. I’m in love with the poetry of line.

Paint challenges the lines, the gestures of line, and offers another layer, a cover, a bridge to a suggestion of form. The dialog between the two is the essence of my painting. I like to be surprised, inspired and challenged by unexpected intuitive choices of this non-verbal language.

And then came Blue. Now I seem to see blue everywhere!

In these works the blue paint is stretched like skin over an ink armature. It becomes the connective tissue that leads to the creation of form. Yet, the intention of line, whether an audacious gesture or a delicate suggestion, punctures the opaque skin and asserts its presence.

The act of painting is not always a battle. Sometimes it is a delicate poem that arrives quietly. Both paths have their own beauty and poignancy of expression.

I paint for moments of clarity. I paint for the times I find the courage to destroy and rebuild. I paint to feel alive.

Talya Baharal Website