Escape Oil on Canvas 39.5” x 39.5”
Corinne Garese’s spirited works seek to revitalize traditional painting styles of the past. Working predominantly in oil paint on canvas, Garese’s oeuvre incorporates portraiture, still life, and landscapes that recall the works of European Old Masters and early nineteenthcentury paintings. Her palette is at once compelling and decorative as she juxtaposes bright, contrasting hues imbued with palpable texture through the touch of her putty knife. Garese often incorporates traditional iconography within her works; women clothed in elaborate, ornamented costumes pose against classical backdrops of interiors and seaside landscapes. Portraits of Spanish, African, and Victorian women marry with Mediterranean coastal views that beg the viewer to establish connections to a forgotten past. Garese’s most recent series blends nineteenth-century figuration with geometric abstraction in an effort to reconcile the formalism of the past with a timeless present.
Born in the Mediterranean, Garese’s artistic career was launched through her acceptance to Les Beaux Arts de Bordeaux, a reputable fine arts school in France. Her inspiration comes from working in both decorative arts and the trompe-l’oeil style of painting. Garese states: “The axis of my work is to find the consistency between the world of the past and that of today.”