"Gabrielle Glitters" Bringing a New meaning to modern day Painting
Gabrielle ,the 18 artist out of Montclair, New Jersey Painting her way through life.I recently stumbled across Gabrielle work on Instagram this past month and it is truly my pleasure to highlight the awe-inspiring talent that she is bringing to the visual arts world. This digital ,graphic design high-speed era we live in it is such a rarity to find artists who still appreciate and have the patient talent to create with a paint brush. I asked Gabrielle what keeps her inspired to continue going in this fast pace time and she told me, " I work in a lot of mediums: I’m a choreographer/dancer, a photographer, a filmmaker, and a visual artist. In all these forms I derive my inspiration from colors, textures, and the thoughts that occupy my mind constantly. I love podcasts and music and reading and writing and I think all of that comes out in painting for me." With all inspirations in creating there are always obstacle to follow.Gabrielle expressed with us her obstacles as an artist she faces. she told us " It’s really hard to not compare myself to other young artists. There are so many people my age who have had their work featured, have become popular, have sold pieces for more money, etc. than me. It’s a dangerous trap because I start to get into my own head."
What i took from that is how HUMAN and raw someone can be with their struggles , just a friendly reminder that even though many come across as perfection online . we are still HUMANS. Gabrielle's raw honesty translate into all her work she creates.I got the chance to ask some questions behind the process and let her tell us the story behind of one o her new vulnerable creations "EGO Death"
Gabrielle told us "
I made a sketch this summer that I used to create the piece. The drawing was about how ego and pride are dangerous in our personal development and at a societal level. On a personal level we have a person talking on “autopilot”, totally zoned out, they feel the need to fill the space with meaningless ideas because they’re to prideful for whatever reason (their identity, their upbringing, etc.) to leave space for anyone else to share. The headless figure kind of represents a sacrifice to me. He has sacrificed their head, their knowledge, to fuel their ego with a meaningless object like a gold chain.
The trophy in the painting says “nice car” which shows what we award as important or a measure of success in society. I thought of all these images while listening to the Dissect podcast which analyzed every song on Tyler the Creator’s album, Flower Boy. The themes of ego, pride, identity and how we measure our success are very central to the album. I was visiting my art teacher from high school and he asked if I was gonna make the drawing into a painting which I hadn’t thought of, so a couple days later I painted it! It only took me around 5-6 hour total to put it together but it was fun to transfer the colorless sketch into a painting full of color. All the original details didn’t work in a painting format but I think it has a similar message as the original sketch. I named it Ego Death one because I love that album by the internet and Syd is related to Tyler (who heavily inspired the them of the piece) and I thought the name sounded exactly like what the painting conveyed.
One other thing that really drew me in about Gabrielle work was her use of colors and abstract
"I haven’t always worked with a lot of abstraction but in my senior year of high school I started freeing up my creative process and abstraction became natural and fun for me to experiment with. As for color I’ve always loved playing with color in my art; it’s just a natural thing for me." Gabrielle tells us
I Think one phrase to sum up Gabrielle work is "Honest Feelings"
Everyone one of her pieces are pieces that tell their own story of how she felt in that moment,and what she stands for as a person while still balancing enough abstraction for a viewer to collect their own honest feelings from, to that I say thank you Gabrielle. THANK YOU for not creating art just for trends,THANK YOU for not being cliche, and THANK YOU for not following others but following your heart , THANK YOU Gabrielle for being you.
to get to know more about this fucking awesome artist check out her Instagram