Piece description from the artist
Nascence is a winter treescape made with acrylic paint and media, metal foil, stiffened paper, string and retroreflective thread, along with acrylic based texture gel (coarse oxide powder embedded in clear acrylic). It is one of the works in my second series of Tree of Life Paintings.
The title refers to the character of Winter, when all of the plants and many of the animals seem to be asleep, watching and waiting for the warm weather to return. At times it feels as if there's this tremendous energy – a potential for becoming and for renewal – balanced on the edge of a pin. But until the balance tips and tumbles into the new refreshed and energetic state, it's perched, waiting, not quite realized, nascent.
Or in nerd terms, Winter can feel very metastable.
One of my favorite features of this painting is the metal foil in the sky, layered with zinc white and Payne's gray paint colors. Zinc white is translucent. It doesn't completely cover the color and metallic characteristics of the foil with a hard line (paint here, naked foil there). The effect is much softer and more blended. In areas where the white is very thin, it scatters the light reflected off the foil, creating soft glowing colors.
The paper and string features were sculpted using Golden's GAC400 medium to stiffen and fix them into place. There is a barrier layer that matches the reflectivity of the background – acrylic soft gel and matte medium underneath a final varnish layer for UV protection. The barrier layer and varnish provide moisture resistance, structural strength and stability and archival protection for the piece. If restoration or cleaning ever becomes necessary, the outer varnish can be removed with alcohol by a professional restorer. This will not affect the underlying paint and paper (because of the barrier layer).
Dr. Regina Valluzzi has an extensive scientific background in nanotechnology and biophysics. She has been a scientist in the chemical industry, a green chemistry researcher, a research professor at the engineering school at Tufts, a start-up founder engaged in technology commercialization, and a start-up and commercialization consultant.
Even during periods of intense activity as a scientist, Dr. Valluzzi has always held a strong interest in the visual arts and in visual information. While she majored in Materials Science at MIT, she also obtained a second degree in music and a minor in visual studies. Visual arts have managed to permeate her technical work; during her Ph.D in Polymer Science and Engineering at UMass Amherst, she completed a thesis that required advanced electron microscopy, image analysis, and theoretical data modeling. These experiences provided the visual insight and information that now influences much of her artwork.
Dr. Valluzzi’s work has been included in private collections across the US, UK, Germany, Canada, Japan, Netherlands, Switzerland, Bulgaria, Dubai and Malta, and in the corporate collection of "Seyfarth Shaw" Boston law offices around Boston. She has a selection of pieces on loan to the MIT Materials Science and Engineering Department as indoor public art. Her accomplishments include having published thirty articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals, having made several scientific patents, having been a subject matter expert for an encyclopedia chapter, and having been invited to speak at science talks across the US, Europe, and Japan.
Her newsletter is a good source of ongoing information: http://eepurl.com/daiLQ
An Art Advisor will get in touch with you today to schedule a free consultation to discuss your artwork needs.
Get Started
By
