MY BACKGROUND

Journeying from the colorful calm of her Haitian childhood to the earnest passions of her New York experience, Chantal Gesse has only to look over her shoulder to create impressionistic works with riotous emotional range often eliciting both intimate reflection and bold inquiry simultaneously: thickets of bare trees ripe with secrets; human figures imbued with the majesty of mountains; mundane objects refreshed in a waterfall of emotional colors and elevated anew for artful contemplation. Art 4 Life

MY MEDIUM

Working in oils and acrylics, her work is an ongoing roadmap of joys and pains felt and lessons learned. Whatever the subject, the viewer is left buoyant as the work continually speaks silently of hopefulness and purpose.

Gesse expresses theme subtly, even mysteriously, but she exploits color brazenly. As evident in her vibrant color palette, Gesse’s Haitian heritage presses its way to into her work. Every color choice yields an emotional resonance, a vibration palpable to the viewer. Colors are stroked delicately or dramatically until images arise creating a new veil. (Striking a balance Madison Avenue would envy), Gesse’s work asks whether this is the emotion of color or the color of emotion. Posited in that balance, the viewer is moved from his/her awareness of present circumstances and is transported to another possibility.

MY INSPIRATION

Gesse can give detailed account of her own emotional response specific to any given color and admits to feeling that painting is ‘addictive, like learning a lesson in living. (You can make mistakes and correct them if it's too intense or leave it be and go back to work on it however many times.’ Whatever happens)