| |
|
 | Christine Peirano
Selected Works
In contemporary art the quest for personal identity is often subsumed by cultural and economic imperatives which critical reviewers trust and value more highly. A generation of post-modernists has attempted to pronounce the personal irrelevant or even non-existent. Christine Peirano stands in opposition to contemporary trends toward impersonal cynicism and banality. Her work stands for meaning, truth and self-affirmation. Peirano's work is so deeply personal that it transcends individual identity and points toward the absolute. These new works have at their genesis an intense life-long struggle for personal and cultural identity, which took the form of painting relatively late in the artist's life. In Peirano's most recent paintings we witness the fruition of that search for truth  what she calls "my truth"  the truth of her own being. These most recent works reflect the full integration of gender, culture, spirit and history creating unique expressions of universal truth.
Peirano's paintings are sensuous and playful. Her surfaces are painted with a profound understanding of touch in all its forms which allows the work to convey a benign sense of warmth and engagement. The work is inseparable from the artist's alternate roles as mother, worker, wife, lover, builder and teacher. Each mark carries a lifetime of experiences. One does not observe or read these works. They are intended to be experienced on a deeply personal level. One dances with these works or perhaps converses with them, but always there is participation. Our conversation  our dance  is delightful and satisfying but there is something darker and sadder here that is not so obvious. At the moment of pleasure there is a twinge of pain  in ecstasy, a touch of terror. These aesthetic paradoxes are at the heart of Peirano's work. This quality in her artwork refers back to a nineteenth century notion of the sublime as supreme aesthetic experience. It also speaks to a new sense of femininity, which is increasingly a part of the international art world's most important new directions.
Peirano is fearless in her exploration of new visual material. Her images come from the farthest reaches of being. By scratching through layers of paint she gains access to deeper and more profound levels of truth. The process that leads her to these discoveries is one of passion and courage. It seems as if the terrors of her secret self have lost their ability to hide in Peirano's consciousness. She brings everything to light. These paintings seduce rather than attack. They are pure expressions of the Feminine.
It is tempting to try to find parallels between the art and life of Christine Peirano and the plight of all people in post-modern society. Rather than exploring identity as a psycho-social construct, this artwork takes the artist and the viewer into a deeper pre-conscious world in which symbol, image, color and merge into a single Gestalt. Peirano's work asks questions and offers answers at the deepest levels. Through the artwork of Christine Peirano we look deeply into ourselves and touch the eternal. We courageously confront terror and discover joy. In experience- ing pain we heal ourselves. Peirano invokes the universal honestly and compassionately. She gives us a gift through which we come to know ourselves better and by so doing re-discover what is true and eternal.
-Prof. Michael Grady
Chair, Department of Arts and Consciousness
John F. Kennedy University
Berkeley, California, USA |
|
