Silvia Poloto

 First Time Art Party Participant

wabi sabi 34

Artist’s Website

www.poloto.com

Artist’s Statement

The idea for this body of work came to me as a way of dealing with emotions—loss, sorrow, fear, pain, and despair—flowing over and in me. By drawing my heartbreak, I have been able to be at peace in the present moment.

This work started as charcoal drawings on paper, representing my emotional states. Next I made a series of assemblages. For these three-dimensional compositions, in addition to the drawings, I used plexiglas boxes, resin, and different found objects such as rubber flies, nails, thread, red balls, hair, pills, staples, cotton balls, and gauze. 

Once the assemblages were complete, I photographed them. I then printed them on watercolor paper and mounted them on wood panels.

They are a total of nine pieces called ‘ripple’, ‘buzz’, ‘whirl’, ‘flitter’. ‘flutter’, ‘flicker’, ‘throb’, ‘shiver’ and ‘sprung’.

About the Artist

Brazilian-born Silvia Poloto is an accomplished artist working in a range of visual disciplines. She is known for her lively abstract canvases and mixed-media sculptures. Recognized for her dynamic compositions and color sensibility, Poloto exploits a vibrant visual vocabulary of boldness and subtlety. Her deftly handled juxtapositions unfold in rich, textured hues and expressive gesture. The result is a body of work characterized by equal amounts of surprise, playfulness and provocation. Her aesthetic choices engage the viewer on a visceral level. Poloto has worked in a variety of media, including photography, sculpture, painting and video. Elements of each of these media find their home in her current work.

While the Bay Area is her current home, her work has been exhibited throughout the US and abroad, including United Arab Emirates, France, Spain, Italy, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece and China among others.

In the Bay Area, her work has been featured in exhibitions at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, the Italian American Museum and the DeYoung Museum, where she was an artist-in-residence in 2001.

Poloto’s work has been acquired by more than 80 institutional and corporate collections around the US and by more than 900 private collectors around the world.