Before dinner, I had the chance to see the art show in the dining hall where Nicholas Carbonaro answered questions about his works. In high school, I grew up taking art lessons where the teacher focused on technique and learning how to draw accurately with realistic proportions. Growing up, even paintings that were surreal was required to look realistic. Thus, at first I was slightly irked by the abstract style that Nicholas adopted: it was not a style I was used to. However, upon closer inspection of his works, I started to develop more appreciation for his style.

The first thing I noticed was his experimentation with different mediums and techniques. In one painting, he used paper maché and paint to create a very textured piece, a technique I had not thought of before. The paper maché created ridges along the canvas which he accented with black which the rest of the paper maché was painted purple.

The more surprising painting however was one where he used chili seed mixed with a clear paint as a medium. Evidently, this created a piece with a very textured and interesting background. Moreover, the colors he used very very bold, which is something that I am striving for in my own artwork. I find that I often and timid to have deep, intense, bold colors and often opt for more pastel or bright shades.

In the painting that incorporated chili seeds, Carbonaro also seemed to incorporate genderbending. This I definitely appreciated a lot. As someone who considers herself relatively liberal on gender issues, having a painting where the subject was not immediately identifiable as one of the gender binaries was nice surprise.