Marisabel Gonzales
Combining her experience in the medical world and art, Marisabel Gonzalez invites us to think beyond notions of sickness and health into colourful abstractions.
Words: Emma-Kate Wilson | Photography: Courtesy of Marisabel Gonzales
This and That (2019-20) is presented at the Northern Beaches Creative Space. Photo - Gabriela Villalba.
“There’s no real process. It’s very emotional. It’s very on the moment, and how I feel in front of that canvas,” says Marisabel Gonzales.Photo - Gabriela Villalba.
In a palette of bright and pastel colours, Marisabel Gonzales’ most recent collection, This and That (2019-20) —presented at the Northern Beaches Creative Space — uses abstract paintings that act as an antithesis to the sterile environment of the ultrasound office where she works.
“In the scans, people will say, that looks like an ocean or that looks like flowers,” Marisabel considers. “It’s interesting because when people are looking at abstract works, they’ll always try to anchor to something they know, to make some sort of sense out of it.”
This and That allows the Venezuelan-born artist to add colour to life, bringing emotions to her art to process the realities of life. Marisabel doesn’t ask us to detach from illness or sickness (or even facing a pandemic), as simply, you can’t. As both an artist and a doctor, her job is to understand the body and its natural lifecycles.
“It’s about looking inside you and trying to find inside you that space where, regardless of even feeling sick, you are not your problem or your disease,” the artist adds. “You are way more than that.”
Marisabel Gonzales’ most recent collection, This and That (2019-20) —presented at the Northern Beaches Creative Space. Photo - Gabriela Villalba.
“There’s no real process. It’s very emotional. It’s very on the moment, and how I feel in front of that canvas.”
Marisabel Gonzales’ most recent collection, This and That (2019-20) —presented at the Northern Beaches Creative Space. Photo - Gabriela Villalba.
At the end of 2019, Marisabel had to give up her studio to save money. Already facing the loss of her creative space, she also found a lump in her breast, and simultaneously, her friend was diagnosed with terminal cancer. What was happening in her life directly affected her artworks.
She found herself drawn to the blue and white paint and turned to the canvas to express her feelings for Bigger Than Us. “It has been my most emotional work ever and more personal too,” Marisabel explains. “The orange and red underpainting, probably reflection of my frustration; got taken over by many layers of blue. This happened instinctively. It was almost like by using blue; I was trying to heal and calm my unsettled soul.”
“As the work progressed, intense brush strokes of white and golden took place. Almost in a way of depicting a sky, a heaven, a pathway or maybe just hope.”
When Marisabel first moved to Australia she had concentrated on painting the landscape as a way to connect herself with her new home; but always within her was a desire to capture emotions and the flittering aspects of everyday life. She considered a human cell, active with gestures and marks, yet abstracted to our eyes.
With her oeuvre moving towards abstraction, the colour palette reorientated. But it was also looking at the black and white scans all day that allowed her to notice the small hits of colour she can use on the screen—magenta, blues, yellows.
“I find similarities in the course of diagnosing a patient to what I do as an artist. A back-and-forth questioning and answering process takes place in the production of both type of imagery,” says Marisabel Gonzales. Photo - Gabriela Villalba.
She is also drawn to seasonal colours or inspiration from usual places. Like the time a 96-year-old patient came dressed in lacy underwear motivated Marisabel to introduce green (a colour she doesn’t feel comfortable using) for The Unicorn Club (2020). Or the time Marisabel’s niece gave her a cupcake recipe made of colours, for the process-led Cupcakeseries; allowing the artist to explore the multiple shades and tonal palette that then features throughout the rest of the works.
They allow us to find the quietness in everyday and see life in an alternative perspective; something that was directly influenced by time in lockdown. Marisabel’s artworks are her reactions to life, but in doing so, she hopes to bring the community together through a time of distance.
Her compositions are developed through conversations and finding the beauty of life, even when it feels a little black and white.
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MARISABEL GONZALES
This article is proudly sponsored by the Northern Beaches Council as part of the series ‘Documenting Art in the Time of Corona.’ More information about the project can be found here.
