An abstract painting derived from close observation of oil paint floating on water — a process that produces forms and colour relationships that no intentional mark-making could devise. The observation was extended and documented; the painting reconstructs what the observation found rather than recording it photographically.
The translation from the observed water surface to the canvas required deciding how much to preserve the original colour relationships and how much to adjust them for pictorial coherence. The final painting keeps the observed palette while reorganising the spatial relationships.
About the artist
Gabriela Stan works slowly and with great deliberateness — a single painting can take three to six months from the first preparatory study to the final varnish. This pace is not a limitation but a methodology: she is interested in what sustained looking produces over time, and how a painting changes when it is returned to repeatedly across different moods and light qualities.
Her subjects are drawn from still life and the studio interior — spaces she can control and return to. She does not paint from photographs, on the principle that the absence of the original light introduces a fundamental dishonesty. She accepts commissions for still life and interior work from collectors who understand the extended timeline.
