CLARISSA GALLIANO
Clarissa Galliano is a contemporary British Artist currently specialising in large charcoal botanical drawings. The passion in her charcoal drawings is evident in the scale and virtuosity of her tonal, and linear vocabulary describing British flora.
There is no doubt that her fairly recent body of abstract paintings has incited the passage of abstract qualities in these current botanical studies.
Contemporary Botanical drawings
These charcoal drawings began with my fascination with the wild carrot globe. I had never really paid much attention to the structure of flowers and plants, but the carrot globe completely enthralled me.
I think these drawings have become as much about architecture as botany. The form and structure are the edifying ingredients with which I am searching, to get the image to materialise.
Charcoal has always been my favoured medium. It allows an uninterrupted response to the subject, an immediacy like a stream of conscience. The speed at which decisions can be made using charcoal creates a strong engagement with the visual image and the physical activity.
The corrections of these visual decisions can be seen as ghosts beneath and around the emerging image, so the drawing holds the history of the journey of the art work, its vulnerability, changes and final conclusion.
My motivation for increasing the scale of the botanical images is to amplify the abstract qualities of tone and pattern. The juxtaposition of the 'fragile reality' of the flora versus the 'bold abstract' statements of the drawings seems to be the emerging content of this work.
2017 - The Gallery, Great Milton, Oxfordshire. Solo Show
Bucks Open Studios
2016 - Square Umbrella Gallery, Commercial Square Studios and Pop Up Shop, Marlow, Bucks
Cookham Arts Trail
2014 - Acanthus Gallery. Wareham. Solo Show
2013 - Affordable Art Fair, Battersea, London
One Church Street Gallery. Selected work from Affordable Art Fair
Open Studios Purbeck Art Week
Acanthus Gallery. Wareham. Solo show.
2012 - Dovecote Studio, Cookham Bucks
Contemporary Drawing Exhibition. One Church Street Gallery.
Art Space. Henley on Thames.
Open Studios Purbeck Art Week
2011 - One Church Street Gallery Christmas Exhibition
L'Artishe Gallery, Christmas Exhibition
2007 - Biannually:
Cookham Festival Open Studio
Bucks Open Studio
2006 - NEAC at Mall Galleries
2005 - Invited Featured Artist. Wooburn Festival
2004 - ROI at Mall Galleries. Prize Winner AK Wilson Award
Invited Honorary Member Bucks Art Society
1994 - Stone Paper Charcoal. Exhibition of Drawing.
Milton Keynes Exhibition Centre
Aylesbury Museum
1991 - Large Charcoal Figures and Portraits. Black Boy Gallery.
1984 - Painting accepted by Royal Academy. Summer Exhibition
1983 - Graduated Exeter College of Art & Design
Degree in Fine Art Painting
