About the Artist
Sylvia brings a highly trained hand to her cnavases. She has studied at Sam houston, Rice University, and the prestigious Glassel School of Art, also in Houston. her love for Europe, and France in particular, along with a recommendation from a friend, drew her to Les Illusiones School, in Les Cerqueux, France, where she studied with New York artist Ted Jacobs. This portion of her education deepened Sylvia’s passion for and influencedby the traditions of the Old Masters. Painting every day, often plein air, and soaking up the knowledge of fellow students as well as insturctors, chiaroscuro found its way into Sylvia’s work. For Sylvia, the Old Masters convey mystery and a deeper spirituality, elements that are strongly and intentionally present in her own work.
Angeli says “I strive for sensuality in my work, and I paint with a great deal of passion. I create a mood in my studio through music and atmosphere. I think the energy that is created in my studio environment finds its way onto the canvas… ” When asked why she focuses on painting her large still lifes of fruits – berries, pears, pomegranates, lemons, and more, often all co-existing on the same visual plane – she laughs and answers, “A friend of mine came over to the studio one day and she brought a pear for my lunch. I was a bit bored – I thing all artists get a bit bored from time to time – and the pear was so lovely that, instead of eating it, I painted it. And that was the beginning.”
Sylvia says that she’s been able to stay with this subject matter for ten years now and is still intigued with its visual possibilities. The palette she works with weaves it way from one canvas to the other as she creates paintings that she describes as “mysterious, provocative, luscious, earthy…” She believes that fruit is a very sensual subject matter, carrying metaphors for the feminine and the masculin, and each type of fruit carries a symbol within itself. Lemons, for Sylvia, represent hope; pomegranates are symbolic of fertility, pears are woman and so on.
Angeli’s love for travel permeates her work. When whe visits Europe, as she does frequently, she haunts the contemporary art galleries and the museums to soak up the influences of other artists, both new and old. Travel says the artist, “is good for the soul” with its romance, its cuisine, its moods and mysteries. Italy in particular, with its bounty of work by Old Masters, has particularly influenced her work.
All of this finds its way onto the artist’s canvases in a shimmering dance through layers and layers of thin oil glazes that seem to be lit from within, given substance and depth through a substrate of intentionally manipulated plaster-like texture. Rich and luminous, bold and imaginative, subtle and mysterious – Angeli creates works that are all of this and more.
