FOREWORD
by Samuel Sachs II
Director, Detroit Institute of Arts
The early work of Carla Mazzucato is drawn from a traditional style; she has been affected by the expressionist work of French painter Georges Rouault. Through his work she found her own ability to suggest rather than to describe, to explore mood and feeling, giving shape to beauty and solitude, to every moment in memory.
She is, if we attempt to define her art, a modern expressionist, still moved by the misery of contemporary humanity. There is a poetic quality to her figures in a half real world. However, unlike Rouault or the German expressionists, her art attempts to convey an ultimate optimism in the nature of human beings; her figures seem to walk towards an indefinite horizon in the hope of finding a moment of truth and peace.
Mazzucato
classic art — contemporary vision
Art Critique - Mazzucato: New Horizons (published U.S.A.) - 1994
When painting she follows a composition of color harmonies which reflect the intangible rhythms pervading all of nature. A spiritual art, her rhythmic compositions symbolically unite people and nature, and act upon the soul the way music does. Her vivid and deep colors reflect her love for life, believing that an artist's special tool is to communicate a celebration of life in the joy of the spirit. The individualistic variations in Mazzucato's repetitions of approximately the same theme—friends, parties, crowds of people in streets or walking towards the endless horizon—are variations on her favorite visions of the harmony and struggle of the human spirit. The stories she communicates through her paintings reflect the real documented places and people we know, yet they are like dream images.
Mazzucato shows little interest in cubism and non-objective art, although her modern expressionism adopts the broad strokes and patterns of abstract painting. Color becomes symbolic: her blues are harmony, her reds and yellows express joy, her pinks are serenity and charm, green and white bring peace and rest. All are metaphors for the spiritual in art. This book traces the unfolding of Mazzucato's vision of the world, a vision communicated through dynamic composition and intense symbolic color. It is the world of today.
Summer
New Horizon
Harvest Celebration
