Press Release

Living and working in Costa del Sol, Spain, Estonian artist Monica del Norte paints in abstracts to make use of the creative autonomy she finds in that form. Splashes of red crisscross on vivid backgrounds that could be either liquid or fire, as in "Around the Corner," while droplets of gold snake through the sea-green environments of paintings such as "Misty Twilight of Wetland." While her canvases display passion and drama, del Norte reveals her skill in composition using single details that float within her luminous abstract fields--a curling gateway, brooding Moorish arches, bits of calligraphic text. These real-world objects, placed off-center within the painting, strengthen the fervor of the paintwork they anchor. Del Norte makes use of both ends of the compositional spectrum to bring her vision forth, yet her paintings are more concerned with conveying emotion than formalist ideas. A persistent tension balances the luminous and the material images in her works. If her art is about freedom and beauty, then it is a liberation which acknowledges the realms of both nature and the imagination.