Leticia Galizzi wants you to embrace the abstract, to see things without having to define them, and to appreciate the wonder that exists in the world when you slow down enough to recognize it. She presents her paintings as conversation starters instead of arguments trying to prove a point, and your input is just as valuable as hers in this conversation.
Leticia’s exhibition “Paint Planet” brought our walls to life during the month of April. As the title suggests, the star of the show was paint, but not in the way you might expect. Instead of creating illusions of space, Leticia skillfully utilized paint as a sculptural material, capable of providing texture, structure, and physical depth. The result was a stunning and playful array of truly fantastic pieces that bridged the gap between the idea of what it means for work to be categorized as 2D or 3D.
Resonator’s Taylin Han sat down with Leticia last week to get a little better understanding of her work and the ideas that animate it. Here’s what she had to say.
Q: Leticia, what is your background?
A: I had my MFA in Painting at OU. Before that, I went to Yale School of Art. Part of what I do in this exhibit comes from my experience there. Also, I was born and raised in Brazil and the region I come from is very strong and supportive of the arts.
Q: I noticed rather than opening your exhibition with text about yourself or the artwork, you provide a series of questions for the audience to consider throughout the exhibition. What is your purpose for that?
A: I feel that many people are not very used to abstract art. They don’t know what to do with it, right? So, this was one of my concerns. I wrote the questions in very simple English. I have a kid at home and I wanted to make sure it was accessible to people of all ages. Also, I think art is less a part of people’s lives than I wish it were. When you have at a gallery and the gallery setting, it is almost as if it is expected for people to understand what they see when they come in, to know how to digest what they are given. And they don’t actually have to. I wanted to have an exhibit that is welcoming to everybody. As an artist, I feel the need to live in a place with more engagement with art.
Q: Tell me about the visual qualities of these works here. I’ve noticed a lot of layering, shapes, and texture.
A: Yes, something that is always present is the layering. Another one is that the paintings give you the impression that what you are looking at is just a part of something bigger that extends beyond the canvas, instead of being contained within it. Also, I try to make paintings that make you feel like reaching out and touching their surfaces. I experiment with a lot of different mediums and methods to get different surfaces. They are aimed at your senses, mostly at sight and touch.
Q: Brazil is such a colorful place, all the art and clothes and the country itself is so entrenched in color. Is your wide use of color and texture inspired by this background? Is there another source for your inspiration?
A: I must tell you, I am hoping OU will allow me to teach a course at the mini college in the summer. I made a proposal for a class based on Josef Albers book Interaction of Color. This book made me approach color differently, taught me how to negotiate colors on the painting to my favor.
I am strongly influenced by Brazilian color and by Helio Oiticica’s studies on color, I also noticed, certain cultures deal with color in a much more systematized way, something that Brazil doesn’t do. In Brazil, red and green are not associated with just Christmas. They are just colors, you can wear what you want anytime and it doesn’t mean it’s Christmas.
Q: What is your process like in developing these kinds of works?
A: Narrative is very powerful. When you start with, “I want to discuss this subject”, many times you become more focused on how to convey your ideas on that subject rather than opening up to what the medium has to offer you. When you don’t start with a specific narrative in mind the work unfolds as you create it, you see what the material can give back, it is really interesting. Here (in this body of work), I started my drawing studies with only the ellipse. I also used straight lines, but I limited myself as much as I could to horizontals and verticals. I started filling up my notebooks drawing ellipses, using colors, sometimes drawing only one or two ellipses on a page, sometimes filling the whole page with them. Then I asked myself, “Is this interesting yet simple enough? Will paint have a room here?” This way, the drawing wouldn’t take over and instead, there would be room for the medium to “speak” more intensely. So, it was primarily the medium guiding me. When the work was done, sometimes I would step back and see a narrative there. It doesn’t matter if you intend to make the narrative or not, we just feel the need to create it.
Q: Tell me about some of these thick, shiny, textured stretches of acrylics paint. Usually, you get this thick texture from oil paints but this is all acrylic. (See in Paw, In Movement, Hammock, through a perforated brick wall)
A: I have a 12 year-old, who at the time was 9, she said to me “Mama, I like when the paint is wet and I don’t like it when its dry.” I think she was right, when you put the paint on the canvas it takes a lot from it. So, I thought, “Okay, let me make some pieces without the canvas, using just paint that stands by itself.” So, to get this result, these were made off the canvas, peeled off, and then reattached to the canvas. I really had to work around the temperature of the environment. In this process paint can withstand the cold but in the hot, Oklahoma summer, it can be a challenge.
Q: How intentional are you in your work? The ellipse drawing and then picking the shapes and outlines are pretty loose but what about the laying down of colors and texture?
A: Well, the things is, you start with an idea in mind, but the work usually takes you to different places. And I must tell you, the most frustrated I’ve ever gotten was when I completed a large work and it came out exactly as I had planned. It was unsatisfying. It’s not mathematics, it’s not supposed to be so systemized. I have already heard people complain that they have an idea that they don’t know how to transfer it to the canvas and I think that’s precisely what we should look forward to. Painting is about embracing the surprise and the process. I’m eager for the moment of surprise. For example, when I pick a color, I’ll pick that color and then go a few shades right of that color on my color of choice just to experiment with something new. I think it is more enjoyable and exciting that way.
Q: Leticia, there seems to be some sort of intentional organization of the layout of your works. On this (right) side, it seems like there are more layers and ellipses whereas this (left) side has more color and pattern.
A: Well, I was going from works that display fewer ellipses (on the right side of the gallery) to works that resulted from the use of more and more ellipses (on the left side). I think on this (right) side, the paint is talking to you more strongly. It somehow tests my theory that the less shapes you have, the more room you give for paint to do its thing. I was also thinking about a study I read about how the public tends to move in public spaces. According to this study most people, when entering a room will turn right first. So, I had that in mind too.
Q: What are your favorite works here?
A: Maybe this one (Ceschiati and Warhol in talk) and this one (clown). Ceschiatit and Warhol in talk because some parts of it came out looking very much like the work of a famous sculptor in the city I come from: Ceschiati. I didn’t plan on this so when I saw it I thought, “Wow, Ceschiati came to visit me!” So, I was very happy about that. I also like the green, I feel it speaks for Brazil. The “Warhol” comes from this combination of ellipses here. I just thought that was such an interesting dialogue. With the work clown, I thought it was incredibly tacky and this tackiness was so appealing to me! It was so nice that I overcame that initial impulse to “adjust” the colors trying to make a work that I thought could be a little more palatable.
Q: What is the underlying essence in your work and its relationship to you?
A: I think, no matter how you choose to express yourself, you are yourself. There is always your own essence that’s going to be present. In a way, I think we are caged in ourselves. You can’t be anyone but yourself. You are this given. Of course, you can change over time but there are things you love about yourself that you probably won’t lose. There are things you don’t like about yourself that you’re not going to lose either. These things are intrinsic to who you are. So, we are caged in that sense that we are limited by our intrinsic selves. That’s what makes you more forgiving towards others, being aware of your own limitations. In my case, I can’t see with my left eye. If I look at you using only my left eye, the area where you are appears gray to me, but I can see your surroundings. So, I see you with my right eye and my sense of depth comes from this other eye with which I cannot see details. This impacts the way I look at things. At my first painting class in the east coast, when I tried to do something observational, my professor said “You have some visual issue.” It is true, and I can use it for my benefit, or not. This is just a metaphor but this idea is in everything.
