Underfoot, Underwing features a collection of recent paintings from Sarah Fabrizi. Created right after graduating from her degree, she wrestled both with the actual painting process and in addition, the isolated conditions in which they were made.
Scouring through her old books and textbooks, mostly of the medieval and renaissance periods, Fabrizi searched for a common theme. She wanted something, anything, that she might be able to use to get started on some paintings. A blueprint, or a, for lack of a better term, “jumping-off-point” that allowed her to get paint onto the canvas without thinking too much. Fabrizi found herself drawn to visual representations of dragons in these books. Often seen writhing in defeat under a victor’s pleated boots, she began collecting and saving these images. Similar to how these beasts might hoard treasure or bones of their victims, Fabrizi stockpiled these images to serve as the backbones for these pieces. Within the pieces themselves, an attempt was made to retain some sort of draconic essence derived from the source material. A serpentine palette, a focus on a writhing coiled tail, repetition of the wing, scales, fire. This fixation on one repetitive motif was simply a way to create a body of work that allowed each painting to relate to each other in some way. Working fast and loose, she aims to capture the dramatic energy laid out in these scenes of battle. Mistakes are left alone to dry. Grotesque globs of paint are allowed to harden. Not unlike a dragon or wyrm, there are moments in these paintings that are “perfectly disgusting”.
About the Artist
Sarah Fabrizi is an emerging artist from Oakville, Ontario. A recent graduate of the Arts and Sciences program at the University of Guelph, she specialized in Studio art and Biology. Fabrizi currently lives, works, and has a studio practice in Guelph, Ontario. Through the lens of abstraction, Fabrizi creates overwhelmingly active paintings. She seeks to strike a balance between degrees of finish and unfinished-ness. Fabrizi utilizes art historical sources as blueprints for her pieces. Be it compositionally, thematically, or colouristically, they serve as jumping-off-points and are then mangled and distorted through her painting process. In the past year Fabrizi has shown at the Art Gallery of Mississauga, Lalani Jennings Contemporary Art in Guelph, Birch Contemporary in Toronto, and Propeller Art Gallery in Toronto. She is currently a sponsored member of Propeller Art Gallery.
sarahfabrizistudio@gmail.com
Available Work
Don’t Step on Him
Oil on canvas, 48 x 36, 2023
$2200.00
Boogie Down
Oil and acrylic on panel, 10 x 8, 2023
$175.00
out of frame
Oil on panel, 10 x 8, 2023
$175.00
keep your head down
Oil and oil stick on panel, 10 x 8, 2023
$175.00
Underfoot, Underwing
Oil and oil stick on canvas, 48 x 48, 2023
$2300.00
Moondream
Oil on canvas, 7 x 5, 2023
$150.00
I don’t think I should be here
Oil on canvas, 7 x 5, 2023
$150.00
SCAB
Oil on canvas, 7 x 5, 2023
$150.00
