Mara Fabbro

The geometric patterns in Italian painter Mara Fabbro’s rich, thick compositions evoke minimalism, but upon closer inspection, the sheer volume of material and its sculptural treatment is closer to Abstract Expressionism. She cites her father as an early, unconscious influence, a brick-layer whose essential materials of grout and mortar were precursors to Fabbro’s boldly tinted mixes of sand and acrylic. With this combination of pigment and earth she creates works on panels that are at once paintings and bas-relief sculptures, flat yet topographical, their concentric swirls and spreading lines like crop circles or storms seen via satellite.

While the overall compositions of her works evoke (and are titled after) weather patterns and land masses, their most tantalizing and exquisite details are only discernible upon close reading, like counting the rings in a tree trunk. Rippling lines of paint, bursts of brighter hues buried several layers beneath, thick globs of colorful soil, and jagged peaks and tears near the centers of the paintings all provide thrilling textures and surfaces.