Storm
New paintings by Nada Sesar Raffay
It matters not the cause of the storm – natural or man-made, the surface of the canvases have been annihilated/obliterated by the familiar abstract painting style of the artist. Influenced by Jackson Pollock’s frenzied techniques, Nada Sesar-
Raffay has been exhibiting her work throughout Toronto and Canada over the past twenty-five years. Through her numerous exhibitions, she has created her own language that treads a tenuous line between abstraction and representation.
In the 2015 Storm exhibition at Edward Day Gallery, within the larger canvases, the viewer is confronted by the apocalyptic shelling of the land and her defenseless forms. It is the precise moment when the raw path of an inner tornado has ignited with full force, spraying layer upon layer, to createa permanent turmoil, rendered through a dense wall of paint.The devastation of the larger canvases such as the 4’ x 4’ March Orange, invoke a world discharging with the force of a geyser. Paintings such as Storm, emit a wall of fury that appear to swallow hope. The all-to-kind familiar landforms have been drowned by the catastrophic struggle living within the canvas.
The series of smaller paintings rest within the eye of the squall. They provide a welcome reprieve from the intense bombardment of paint. The land breathes and collects its familiar forms before the next strike. The upper portion of the canvas blazes with a sky in recovery, while the landmass heaves a marred surrender.
As viewers we may ask of the cause of the fury. Has the anger been released from one nation to another or has the earth erupted from the continuous abuse battering her vulnerable natural force? Through Storm, Sesar - Raffay provides the viewer with an inner war of discontent, a landscape fraught with angst that
pleads for clemency.
Mr. Kelly McCray, June 2015
ArtBarrage
Passage
New paintings by Nada Sesar Raffay
Her most recent Passage series references an architectural term that
designates a public area of transition that leads from one space to another; a
vital tunnel link that conjoins two separate structures. An architectural
building process that, on the one hand unites and on the other, encourages
constant motion of the public pedestrian.
The artists’ new paintings, however, are anything but pedestrian and far
exceeds our concept of tunnel vision, whereby viewers are first enticed to
approach the canvas surface through a choreographed dance of colour. Once
we have landed on the other side of the edifice, her birds-eye view of the
canvas surfaces offer open shapes of lush park areas and confident marks
stroked with comfort and ease that float above a synthesis of forms below.
Areas of intricate lines and overlapping forms come into focus that offer up
rich under layers of liberated exuberance we can only hope to discover on
the other side of the tunnel.
Kelly McCray, November 2015
