Sandra Beccarelli

Sandra Beccarelli is a London based artist who creates abstract works based on systems and processes in order to explore the complexities of emotion and reasoning. Constantly pushing the boundaries within painting, drawing and mixed media, she pursues these concepts in both expressive and obsessive ways, where process and meaning are intrinsically linked.

"Beyond the Surface of Seeing" best describes the way she approaches her art, both in content and in its creation. Sandra aims to get to the "essence" of a feeling, often referring to nature as a starting point; an interpretation of what we can see and what we can't; the structure which underlies rhythms and movements stripped down and distilled to pure energy. 

The "backs" of her artworks are the equivalent to these unseen energies, where often the reverse side of her canvas will inform the "front" e.g. syringing through a "hidden grid" or sewing and rippling pins through paper. This method of working resonates with the idea of cause and effect and how everything is linked and exists, even if we can't see it. 

The recurring theme of how emotions can be visually described has been her obsession throughout her career, as has the religious concept of light, dark, loss and hope, order and chaos and looking towards nature as a metaphor, where shadows shift and emotions change. It is in this shadowy area, a transitional place where change occurs, merging or crossing over between two possibilities, a disruption, where consciousness and order "slips". The word "emotion" comes from the Latin "emovere", meaning "disturbance" or “disruption".

In all her works she creates structured working systems and then disrupts them, letting go of order and control to chance and spontaneity. Beccarelli is interested in the use of "empty" space within her work, silent, yet active, where captured moments of intensity such as the accumulation of marks, drips, or heightened colours harmoniously emerge.

BEYOND THE SURFACE 

“Beyond the Surface” is about unseen energies, co-existing spaces and dimensions, and the seepages between the two. I see the optical colour vibrations, shapes which seem to emerge and disappear, drip and bleed as ghostly presences in a similar way to the roses’ phantoms of Dorothea Tanning’s painting. 

CYCLAMEN

“Cyclamen” shows the interdependence of 2 surfaces. What happens on the one effects the other and vice versa. Neither in the end is the ‘right’ side. I entitled the piece “Cyclamen”, the flower I planted by a tree of a suicide victim. The blue surface reflects the water by the tree and the threads are the roots of the tree and spirit of the man as he becomes one again with nature. 

SNOWDROP

Snowdrop’s focus is of the stained and creased white linen tablecloth in Dorothea Tanning’s painting. The edges reveal the once stretched canvas, now removed from the frame and free to show its underside of colours and stains. Snowdrop, the pure white sign of the beginning of spring could be seen as the freshly ironed and crisp pure white table covering, but like all nature will fade, wither and die, leaving its mark behind visually, and like the death of a loved one, in our hearts and minds. 

Download Sandra's Biography here

Download  - Sandra Beccarelli's Private View