Canadian painter in Barga

Growing up in Toronto, Canada my life revolves around the hectic chaos of the daily scheduling we North Americans design for ourselves. Each day typically begins with my head full of what seems like a million random things I have to do and worrying about how I can possibly manage to fit them all into 24 short hours. Of course technology can always help with that. Home phones with at least two lines, cellular phones with two more lines, televisions capable of displaying two shows at the same time and let’s not even mention our beloved computers, facebook, myspace, e-mail, MSN, etcetera.

The irony is that this way of life has become so acceptable to me I hadn’t even noticed how stressed I actually was, or how rarely I would slow down, even just long enough to take a deep breath.

Two months ago, I began to overload and frantically searched the internet for an oasis I could escape to. As an artist, I typed in ‘artist studio apartments’ for rent in Tuscany. Needless to say, pages of information came up and after a short search, I found Barga…or did Barga find me? I quickly made the necessary arrangements, booked flights and here I am. Upon my arrival, I immediately felt the charm that embodies this town. You can’t help but draw comparisons with the place you are from when you find a gem like Barga, and they invariably have come up short on the Canadian side. Don’t get me wrong, I love Canada and all that it stands for. We are a peaceful, loving country with a vast array of landscapes, people and cultures that make up the sometimes mish-mosh melting pot I call my home.

But after three short days, I am captivated by this place…the quiet grace of the stacked buildings in the old part of the town, where I am staying, to the majestic mountains surrounding this beautiful valley, with homes and villas peeking out of the landscape. The other day I began painting a canvas of some of the buildings here and instinctively clicked my computer to play music. After a short time, I heard the distant sound of church bells and had to ask myself why I would listen to pre-recorded songs when I had the music of Barga, right outside my window. The birds chirping, dogs barking, sounds of the local people and of course those beautiful bells chiming. I believe that is the moment when the painting became more about how I felt, than what I saw.

But perhaps the deepest beauty lies within the people who live here. Everyone I have met has been so kind and generous with their friendship, even when faced with my silly dilemma of how to make my phone card work (which by the way, doesn’t). I have begun to feel that I have known these people for much longer than a couple of days. How lucky I am to have two full weeks to indulge the fantasy of being a part of this.

I have heard Barga laughingly described as “a black hole that sucks you in”, but I prefer to think of it as an undiscovered Shangrila, warmly welcoming travellers, and hearing this land whisper the words “just try not to fall in love with me”.

The first in a short series of articles from the Candadian artist Doris Pontieri chronicling her expectations and subsequent discoveries about Barga

Doris Pontieri… images of her work can be seen here. Born and raised in Toronto, where she completed her post-secondary education at Ryerson Polytechnical Institute majoring in psychology, Doris has been on the art scene since she was conceived – her mother, Barbara Allison, was an accomplished artist of her own right. Always interested in the visual arts she began to cultivate her talent at eighteen and her passion for painting hasn’t waned ever since.

Steeped in the Canadian tradition, the subject matter of her artwork has been landscapes and flowers. But it is in the latter that she has dedicated most of her artistic life and freedom of expression. Her floral work is well balanced and spontaneous, but with an eye for effect rather than composition. The result is an effusion of texture in which the figurative is drawn into the receding abstract background.

Doris’ personality and femininity is a mark of her gender that has found freedom of expression into the floral world. However, in the history of fine arts, all male artists have tried their hand at floral compositions – the French artist Henri Fantin-Latour, a friend and supporter of Manet, was very much admired as a flower painter. But few have achieved the sublimity of female artists, of who Georgia O’Keefe is the best example in our century. Doris’ work has an inkling of the profundity of the great American artist and a zest for the contemporary. Her floral paintings are, as Alfred Stieglitz remarked about O’Keefe’s work, “the purest, finest, sincerest things that I have seen in a long time.”