Ester Pugliese

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While earning her BFA in Visual Arts Studio (Specialized Honours, 2001) at York University in Canada, Ester Pugliese spent one year studying abroad in Leeds, UK, where her interest in discerning the line between abstraction and representation took hold. As a Toronto-based Canadian artist, she has exhibited extensively across southern Ontario and is the recipient of numerous awards and scholarships. Pugliese's work can be found in private and public collections, including the Donovan Collection at the University of Toronto and Capital One.

ARTIST’S STATEMENT

Envisioning still life painting through coral reef glasses, Ester Pugliese’s densely layered paintings brim with colour. Patches of vibrant colour resemble land masses and approximations of the darks/lights in flower arrangements. Conjuring verdant earthly gardens and shimmering aquatic forests, this work achieves a heady visual clutter that reflects the overwhelming nature of contemporary society, and reminds us why the natural world needs protecting.

$350.00

Acrylic, soft pastel, carbon pencil and chalkboard paint on wood panel.

8x10"

Channeling diverse influences ranging from endangered species and cut flower arrangements, to children’s amusements and Italian folk music, this mixed media painting captures the fleeting quality of life. By suffusing abstracted swathes of colour with carefully drawn details and a coral reef aesthetic, the works ask viewers to untangle dense layers and find relationships in seemingly disparate imagery. Geometric shapes resembling building blocks threaten to swallow carefully rendered details of plants, suggesting their likely demise through the agency of human progress. However, rather than obliterating the natural living things, these geometric shapes appear to be replicating themselves – learning how to grow alongside the natural world.

Ester Pugliese

$1,200.00

Acrylic, chalk, conté, carbon, and chalkboard paint on panel.

24x24"

This painting is part of a series entitled, False Relations and Fractions. These mixed media works offer up an arrangement of incongruous image pairings and split second variations that layer cultural references, natural elements and imagined realities.

Roofs of Toronto houses open up to reveal ephemeral hierarchies; output graphs from Ontario's wind power facilities intertwine with musical notation spectrograms of Italian madrigals; and groupings of fragile objects invite closer inspection.

Madrigal: Moro lasso al mio duolo (right half), composed by Carlo Gesualdo
Ontario Wind Power Facilities – Actual Output: Dec 14 – 31, 2011.
House: at Christie St. and Davenport Rd.

Ester Pugliese

$1,200.00

Acrylic, chalk, conté, carbon, and chalkboard paint on panel.

24x24"

This painting is part of a series entitled, False Relations and Fractions. These mixed media works offer up an arrangement of incongruous image pairings and split second variations that layer cultural references, natural elements and imagined realities.

Roofs of Toronto houses open up to reveal ephemeral hierarchies; output graphs from Ontario's wind power facilities intertwine with musical notation spectrograms of Italian madrigals; and groupings of fragile objects invite closer inspection.

Madrigal: Moro lasso al mio duolo (left half), composed by Carlo Gesualdo.
Ontario Wind Power Facilities - Capacity: Dec 14 – 31, 2011.
House: at Markham St. and Harbord St.

Ester Pugliese

$1,000.00

Acrylic, chalk, conté, carbon, and chalkboard paint on panel.

20x20"

This painting is part of a series entitled, False Relations and Fractions. These mixed media works offer up an arrangement of incongruous image pairings and split second variations that layer cultural references, natural elements and imagined realities.

Roofs of Toronto houses open up to reveal ephemeral hierarchies; output graphs from Ontario's wind power facilities intertwine with musical notation spectrograms of Italian madrigals; and groupings of fragile objects invite closer inspection.

Madrigal: Occhi del mio cor vita (right half), composed by Carlo Gesualdo.
Ontario Wind Power Facilities – Actual Output: January 1 – 7, 2012.
House: at Markham St. and College St.

Ester Pugliese

$1,050.00

Acrylic, soft pastel, carbon pencil and chalkboard paint on panel.

18x24"

This painting is part of a series of mixed media works entitled Disfluency and Delay. The series presents painted spectrograms of impromptu performances culled from YouTube videos (shown in dark grey), layered with audio spectrograms of natural events (glacial collisions, ice fractures, earthquakes, shown in light grey), outlines of sculptural/aquatic forms that resemble sea anemones implying air/water movement, and charted data (output and capacity) from Ontario’s wind farms.

Featuring spectrograms from YouTube clips “At Tamarack” and “Ice Window”.
Also featuring Ontario Wind Power Facilities data (capacity & output) for February 15 through 21, 2013.

Disfluency is the inability to produce smooth, fluent speech, such as inadvertently repeating words or uttering “um” and “uh” during an impromptu or practiced speech. Delay refers to the repetition of a sound at intervals: delayed sound can diminish with reducing volume, or create a feedback loop becoming endlessly louder. Breaking the cycle to quiet the mounting noise requires stopping the sound, pausing for a moment.

Ester Pugliese

$1,275.00

Acrylic, soft pastel, carbon pencil and chalkboard paint on panel.

30x22"

This painting is part of a series of mixed media works entitled Disfluency and Delay. The series presents painted spectrograms of impromptu performances culled from YouTube videos (shown in dark grey), layered with audio spectrograms of natural events (glacial collisions, ice fractures, earthquakes, shown in light grey), outlines of sculptural/aquatic forms that resemble sea anemones implying air/water movement, and charted data (output and capacity) from Ontario’s wind farms.

This piece features spectrograms from YouTube clips “Branson School Chamber Singers” and “Singing Iceberg”. It also features Ontario Wind Power Facilities data (capacity & output) for February 8 through 14, 2013.

Disfluency is the inability to produce smooth, fluent speech, such as inadvertently repeating words or uttering “um” and “uh” during an impromptu or practiced speech. Delay refers to the repetition of a sound at intervals: delayed sound can diminish with reducing volume, or create a feedback loop becoming endlessly louder. Breaking the cycle to quiet the mounting noise requires stopping the sound, pausing for a moment.

Ester Pugliese

$1,275.00

Acrylic, soft pastel, carbon pencil and chalkboard paint on panel.

30x22"

This painting is part of a series of mixed media works entitled Disfluency and Delay. The series presents painted spectrograms of impromptu performances culled from YouTube videos (shown in dark grey), layered with audio spectrograms of natural events (glacial collisions, ice fractures, earthquakes, shown in light grey), outlines of sculptural/aquatic forms that resemble sea anemones implying air/water movement, and charted data (output and capacity) from Ontario’s wind farms.

This piece features spectrograms from YouTube clips "At a Fancy Party" and "Lightening on the Lake" and "Ice 04 Part 1". It also features Ontario wind power facilities data (capacity and output) from January 20 through 26, 2013.

Disfluency is the inability to produce smooth, fluent speech, such as inadvertently repeating words or uttering “um” and “uh” during an impromptu or practiced speech. Delay refers to the repetition of a sound at intervals: delayed sound can diminish with reducing volume, or create a feedback loop becoming endlessly louder. Breaking the cycle to quiet the mounting noise requires stopping the sound, pausing for a moment.

Ester Pugliese

$350.00

Acrylic, soft pastel and carbon pencil on wood panel.

8x10"

Channeling diverse influences ranging from endangered species and cut flower arrangements, to children’s amusements and Italian folk music, this mixed media painting captures the fleeting quality of life. By suffusing abstracted swathes of colour with carefully drawn details and a coral reef aesthetic, the works ask viewers to untangle dense layers and find relationships in seemingly disparate imagery. Geometric shapes resembling building blocks threaten to swallow carefully rendered details of plants, suggesting their likely demise through the agency of human progress. However, rather than obliterating the natural living things, these geometric shapes appear to be replicating themselves – learning how to grow alongside the natural world.

Ester Pugliese

$350.00

Acrylic, soft pastel, oil pastel and carbon pencil on wood panel.

8x10"

Channeling diverse influences ranging from endangered species and cut flower arrangements, to children’s amusements and Italian folk music, this mixed media painting captures the fleeting quality of life. By suffusing abstracted swathes of colour with carefully drawn details and a coral reef aesthetic, the works ask viewers to untangle dense layers and find relationships in seemingly disparate imagery. Geometric shapes resembling building blocks threaten to swallow carefully rendered details of plants, suggesting their likely demise through the agency of human progress. However, rather than obliterating the natural living things, these geometric shapes appear to be replicating themselves – learning how to grow alongside the natural world.

Ester Pugliese

$350.00

Acrylic, soft pastel, oil pastel and carbon pencil on wood panel.

8x10"

Channeling diverse influences ranging from endangered species and cut flower arrangements, to children’s amusements and Italian folk music, this mixed media painting captures the fleeting quality of life. By suffusing abstracted swathes of colour with carefully drawn details and a coral reef aesthetic, the works ask viewers to untangle dense layers and find relationships in seemingly disparate imagery. Geometric shapes resembling building blocks threaten to swallow carefully rendered details of plants, suggesting their likely demise through the agency of human progress. However, rather than obliterating the natural living things, these geometric shapes appear to be replicating themselves – learning how to grow alongside the natural world.

Ester Pugliese