Common Thread
Original medium: Acrylic on Canvas ©2009
Purchase Original – $1500
Purchase Print
Common Thread
Original medium: Acrylic on Canvas ©2009
Purchase Original – $1500
Purchase Print
Rainbow Falls
Original medium: Acrylic on Canvas ©2009
www.cianellistudios.com
Purchase This Contemporary Painting
Rainbow Falls is among the few abstract landscape paintings that took a considerable amount of patience and time to build up the layers and texture, taking about a month and a half to create. This new painting process allows me to acquire just the right colors and tones while also expressing the energy and emotions I feel in the amount of texture. Taking a step back, it’s almost as if the beautiful subject matter of “Autumn Falls” coerced with the texture of ”Transfiguration” to create this piece. I hope you like it. The original is for sale at this time directly from Cianelli Studios. You can also purchase prints right through my website.
Rainbow Falls – Detail 1
Rainbow Falls – Detail 2
Rainbow Falls – Detail 3
Rainbow Falls - Detail 4

I have begun working on what resembles another abstract waterfall painting. As you can tell I love the way paint pours onto the canvas. The initial stages are the most fun. I let the paint freely flow and allow my mind to quickly visualize and create the subject matter in real time. This part of the abstract painting process is the easiest. Rapid visualization is the most natural for me. Allowing the colors and glazed layers to all come together in harmony, well that’s not always the easiest. Much depends on patience, paint removal, and acquiring a state of mind where the richness of color, texture, and subject matter can clearly be expressed.

Transfiguration
Original medium: Acrylic on Canvas ©2009
www.cianellistudios.com
Purchase This Abstract Painting
I began creating this painting a few months ago. This piece underwent many changes as I experimented with different textural forms and varying color tones. I poured a lot of paint into this one. I decided to call this painting Transfiguration because it represents change on a few levels. The changes took place in the actual painting process. And change is represented in the abstract subject matter which can be viewed as a rising or setting sun on the horizon. There is transfiguration in the way the sun, by casting light, changes our perception of our scenery. Very similarly our very own hearts, when casting love, transfigure our bodies and minds and the way we appear before others.
The sky is the soul of all scenery.
It makes the earth lovely at sunrise
and splendid at sunset.
In the one it breathes over the earth
a crystal-like ether,
in the other a liquid gold.
- Thomas Cole
Transfiguration – Detail
The Impressionists were a genre of artists from the 19th century whose intent was to capture the effects natural light had on the landscape. To achieve this, they set their easels up outdoors. They called themselves “en plein air” artists which is a French expression that means “in the open air.” Some believe that painting outdoors expresses nature in a fuller way and allows the artist to capture the needed vibrancy and spontaneity in their work. Today the contemporary landscape artists are very much still “en plein air” artists, but there are a group of landscape artists that, while painting indoors, paint a light from a slightly different source.
These landscape artists tend to create work that is abstract or slightly abstract. And to understand their source of light, you have to understand the abstract artist. The abstract artist has a painting style that is all together very different. The general consensus is that the abstract artist paints from within where there is more emotional and expressive energy. So if indeed these artists are painting a light source it would make sense that they are painting not the natural light on the outer world, but an expression of the inner light from within.
Artists and critics have yet to classify all the genres of abstract art. So at this present time there does not appear to be a classification for abstract artists painting “the light from within.” But what does it really mean to paint this way?
First of all, not every abstract landscape artist attempts to paint an obvious light source within their work. And, those that do are generally unaware as to why they are doing it other than the fact that it may look intriguing. But considering what the light source represents from those abstract landscape artists that have spoken about it, it is something very soulful and connected with the individual. One way to explain it would be to say the light represent their our own souls connection with its source.
You see, without trying to re-create reality, some abstract landscape artists go within themselves to reveal on the canvas an essence of nature and also the source of nature, all while they are aware that the two are a part of themselves. The end result is something they consider spiritual, uplifting, or possibly healing. Of course, this is not to say that “en plein air” artists do not have these same emotions when painting, it’s just a different way to express the light source.


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This semi-abstract painting, Autumn Falls, was sold to a law firm in Florida. I’ll be working on another abstract painting of waterfalls for my next piece. To purchase a print visit FineArtAmerica.com

Bursting Sun - Detail

