when i was in Venice in January, i stumbled upon this gallery called Opera. I saw the most amazing painting there by an artist named Lita Cabbelut. Her work is very morbid, unnerving, but beautiful, her technique is flawless. She reminds me a bit of Jenny Saville (one of my absolute favorites), only using much darker colors, less pastels and also she's far less graphic (Saville paints nude, obese women, operations, etc.) and more neo-expressionistic. some of work also reminds me of Egon Schiele, but much more painterly and less graphic. His work is mostly of women masturbating, people seemingly haunted by sexuality, etc..
i'm trying to figure out where i stand within all of this. My work is so much about sexuality and feeling lost within my own identity as a woman; never feeling satisfaction, never standing solitary but yet feeling alone at all times. lost, immobile. Also, about trying to fill this mold that has been created for me by my mother & grandmother, yet trying to also retain a sense of individuality within such a lackluster, cookie cutter world. I guess i'm trying to express this paradox that is always surrounding me.
my work is always relatively morbid, unsettling, unidentifiable. i love making it look obscure because i often feel that i'm obscure to most, i'm vanishing, i'm neither in one direction or the other because im stuck in this whirlwind of standards and superficialities. how can i completely exist within my own skin, how can i be wholly myself and not be tainted by society or by the ideals placed on me by my mother (a woman who has altered herself time and again)?
these are just some thoughts.....i really need to figure out what the hell is influencing the work that i'm creating...
