Cindy Rizza – The Beauty of Nostalgia on Canvas
When it comes to setting a mood, American based contemporary realist painter Cindy Rizza knows how to get your mind wandering. Evoking the feeling of nostalgia by depicting memories of her own, Cindy takes us back to the little moments in life she cherishes, as if we’ve experienced them ourselves.
The award-winning artist is known for playing with the power of collective memory and identification in a truly remarkable way. Arousing a human presence lingering throughout every canvas, she creates a certain intimacy between the (un)seen subject and the viewer, even if that painting portrays a door, a shadow of a house, or a clothesline of linen drying in the garden.
Fascinated by the influence a single object can have on the human brain, Cindy’s most recent work consists of nothing but chairs. A chair in the garden facing the sun, three on the terrace, one with a quilt draped over it. Besides the fact that these beautifully painted canvasses resemble photographs, when skimming past them it seems there is not a lot to glance at. However, when giving it a closer look and some thought, comfort and past memories overtake.
Even though our mind is set to treat everyday objects as ordinary, by treating those mundane things with carefulness and an open mind, Cindy provokes a surprising sense of otherworldliness as if there is a second layer to her paintings that lures us into a story we can all identify with.
