Artist Statement
Antoinette Wysocki American artist Antoinette Wysocki is an expressionistic painter who employs mixed media on organic materials. Since 1998, Wysocki has removed herself from the confines of only stretched canvas and turned equal attention to working on rag. Paper allows the artist to play with absorption rates and its characteristic malleable quality retains the immediacy of drawing - which has always been the touchstone for Wysocki’s painting. Action painting, manipulation of media and controlled technique is what defines her work. The artist has developed a process of combining various materials, chance, control and analysis in her pieces. In each of her works, Wysocki creates a balance between the media and absorption rate of the surface, so that the various materials interact, binding or refracting from each other and the paper and linen itself. Each work starts with gestures and washes, then moves into controlled brush strokes with detail. When the painting reaches a comfortable finished point, it is then time to indulge in the materials. The goal is to balance raw, untouched material in some areas with highly saturated color in others, sometimes consciously, others by chance. One misused layer of media can alter the piece beyond repair, inspire to the next step or become the focus of the piece itself. Hidden text and symbols often nod towards humor to capture the viewer for a closer inspection. Organic images can often be identified through these images, hidden within the abstract, often revealing botanicals from her study through the Smithsonian Institute and the Corcoran College of Art's Botanical illustration program. As such, the works teeter between governance and circumstance: the artist organically alters, enhances and even erases shapes. The works are introspective and deeply expressive, close inspection across a body of her work reveals a diary of inscribed messages and ghost-like imagery, recording the artist’s process of reconciling the imagery with her psyche. Antoinette Wysocki received her BFA from San Francisco Art Institute and has shown internationally including: New York, London, Hong Kong and Dubai. In 2007 she was nominated for next emerging artist by GLAAD in New York City and was awarded an artist’s grant for a artist program through the Santa Fe Art Institute in 1998. Antoinette currently resides in New York City.
Educational Background
BFA 2000, Painting, San Francisco Art Institute San Francisco, California 1993-1995 Interdisciplinary, Maryland Institute College of Art Baltimore, Maryland 1995,2004 Continuing Education, Corcoran College of Art Washington, DC
