China Heights is proud to present a dual showcase of two complementary artists Kitty Callaghan & Luca Blasonato. Both artist work within the abstract realms of painting and collage, with the primary focusing being on a non-linear narrative, told through the reinterpretation of forgotten history, both personal and observed.
Kitty Callaghan
"My works are a shrine to the books I love to collect, after gathering dust in my home and on the street, in the charity book shops and the images I stumble across when I least expect it. I hope to tell a different story through placing these images in new settings inside my works, maybe an unexpected one and for their stories to live on, rather than stuck on a bookshelf somewhere.
In steadfastly collecting photo books and magazines for over 10 years now, predominantly from the 1950’s onwards, it’s interesting to me to see how the photo books, magazines, and westernised/mass media in general’s tone and focus has shifted over this time, and something I often wonder about in terms of the future of printed matter given books are becoming rarer in the world we live in, in comparison."
Luca Blasonato
"Inspiration for my paintings comes through responding to the everyday experience and the responsive play with materials. I look at a lot of organically formed images just in everyday life working in a forensic approach, archiving and taking photos of things I see on the street, also working from images online, magazines and movies and then putting them in the painted realm.
Within my own paintings, I am dissecting the work down into its basic elements. I am trying to create a sensory experience. Giving the maximum emotional effect with minimal paint application but appearing as a build-up painted image.
This series of works have openness in the painting, not confining with a certain genre or style. They work in pairs, some representing landscapes, some are image paintings and others straight abstraction. But all coming from a similar place no matter how the image differs. A focus on what I want my paintings to look and feel like to my audience, not giving answers but raising questions and having an emotional effect on them. the decisions made to leave a painting in the essence of discovery demonstrating intellectual flexibility. Restraining as a tool of subtraction and form of mark-making."