"The Harbour " Painting

Brazilian born artist Karina Vettorel has been working and exhibiting in London for the past five years. Vettorel completed her BA Hons degree in Fine Art at University of East London. Vettorel’s work consists of photography, drawing, printmaking and painting. In her most recent series, she has been using photography as a source to inform her paintings. The space between the photograph and what she recreates afford her the flexibility she seeks and she is developing a distinct and imaginative style. Vettorel captures the beauty of old, devalued or discarded objects and places of no apparent significance. Interested in realism, the actual surface of objects, she tries to simulate the look of actual materials, to excite a sense of touch. Applying the paint with thick brushstrokes, washes and palette knives, she imbues the neglected and prosaic with fresh life and beauty. In her group of paintings called ‘Abandoned, Something from Nothing’, she emphasises her interest the abject. A simple old door, rusty, decaying objects, lonely roads and highways… These are based on places seen and remembered from her travels. The wear and tear suffered and endured by the inanimate and the marks of time that linger: A letterbox was found almost lost in the middle of nowhere; a highway, vague and mysterious; a road that hugs the rugged contours of a beautiful land. Vettorel has wandered along highways in barren and expansive places as if travelling without arriving at anywhere in particular, searching for something that is only discovered when she finds it. The land itself appears forgotten, as if it is hiding from us the truth of its history. The journey is continued in her exploration of technique and disruption of the painting surface. The variety of surface and handling becomes hugely important since her connection with the subject feels so profound. By composing through the camera lens, combined with bold, abstract cropping devices and the breaking up of the image through the use of multiple canvases, Vettorel combines an aesthetically attuned sensibility with contemporary sophistication.