NORMA RGF
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orma RGF paints the mystical wildness of the American desert with a fresh, modern, wholly unique perspective. Norma RGF has been painting most of her life, and under three different names: her father’s, her first husband’s and her second husband’s. She has combined the initials to create the last name she is known by as an artist. Originally from New York, Norma attended Cooper Union, where she studied Fine Art and Graphics. Influenced by Photorealism, Pop Art and Albers Optical Color Theory, Norma’s work is bold, almost brazen, in its hyper-real figures and otherworldly colors.
When Norma moved to Arizona, her art became influenced by the profound landscape of the Sonoran Desert and the lively, soulful “living history events,” which included Native Americans. Norma earned the name “soulcatcher” for the startlingly accurate and sensitive portraits of these native peoples. Norma’s use of acrylic paint creates flat color shapes and emphasizes patterns: both of the landscape and of the native tribes. Though Norma’s work is highly realistic in form, her colors and perspective offer an almost supernatural glimpse into another culture and a forbidding, yet beautiful, landscape.
Norma RGF lives in the San Tan Mountains in the So-noran Desert, where she works out of a studio that is entirely solar-powered. She has exhibited her work widely throughout the U.S. Website: http://www.desertdrawings.com
Monument Valley Macho Acrylic on Canvas 22”x 28”
PATRICIA VALENCIA CARSTENS
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atricia Valencia Carstens is a talented painter who is fully aware of the implications of living and its influence on the creative process. Her paintings are characterized by a sense of mood and drama infused through the use of a limited palette and swaths of dark, empty shadows surrounding her figures. Carstens’ paintings often focus on a female protagonist punctuated by individuality and introspection, however, her creamy brushwork and treatment of paint remains playful and rich. With an almost sculptural approach she models her figures with tactile brushstrokes, allowing the paint to drip where it may, her figures rise out of the darkness to boldly peer back at the abyss. Carstens enjoys landscape painting as well, particularly with reference to how people have developed a sense of home within the natural surroundings. Her artwork is concerned with this harmony between humanity and nature, and it is from this perspective that life itself becomes her muse. “I go always on the lookout for something to change, or to understand. As to live, more intensely.” Born in Buenos Aires, Carstens studied at the National School of Fine Arts before moving to Germany in 1986. Her work has been collected and exhibited in Germany, Italy, Denmark, Switzerland and the United States. Patricia Valencia Carstens lives and works in Germany. Website: http://www.valencia-art.de
The Waiting Lady 2 Acrylic on Canvas 48”x 24”