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My work focuses on the
beauty and strength of women and children.
I use color to convey the vibration of light. I paint in different
layers, perhaps like weaving yarn, to create a complex, tri-dimensional
texture. Many times I feel I am sculpting the canvas. I also incorporate
different elements in the composition: I use beach-washed glass, paua
shell, beads, lace or paper. My paintings take several months to be
realized and I love every challenging step of it.
What inspires my art? A woman radiating strength, a soft expression on a
child’s face, a quiet moment of contemplation. What influences my choice
of materials? Anything of beauty, for example: my latest paintings have
beach-washed glass from the beaches of old San Juan. The shell of snails,
called paua, that my friend uses when he builds guitars, became the
background of The Three Graces and Aria. In my travels I also gather
ideas: when I came back from Africa I was compelled to realize several
paintings using beads such as The Dancers.
I was born in Puerto Rico and spent my childhood in Old San Juan I did
my high school in Paris, France. Studied painting when I was a child
with my father Alfonso Arana, a renowned Puerto Rican artist. I hold a
degree of Fine Arts in Painting from the University of Massachusetts and
have done post-graduate studies and work in Paris and Montpellier,
France. I have exhibited my paintings in various galleries across the
country and abroad. My most recent exhibitions were in 2005 in Square 1
Gallery in New York City and The Smith College Museum of Art in
Northampton Massachusetts. My work is been used in school textbooks
published by Prentice Hall and Globe Book Company. I illustrated a
children’s book, Soledad Sigh Sighs, published by Children’s Book Press.
At the present I live and paint in Northampton, Massachusetts. The most
beautiful creation of mine are my four children: Klara, Nina, Kristina
and Gabriel.
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