The Arts & Culture Journal

Michela Riba is an Italian artist living in Vignolo. This selection of paintings takes a look at a collection of fashion portraits, which offer a cohesive body of work but one in which each picture has a fresh originality and uniqueness.

Michela's work involves a talent for depicting the aesthetic and the intrinsic; human expression and anatomy. The smoothness of the skin and the inquisitive eyes immediately draw us. 

Many of the eyes suspiciously spy the viewer with the self-confidence and weariness of maturity. It is often unnerving and yet equally arousing.

Confounding the artist’s consistency in her style, each of Michela's paintings offer a new and vital experience. Set against a solid background colour, this immediately suggests a mood within the work, which is either comfortably reinforced or starkly challenged by the figure in the foreground. 

There is also huge variety in the angle from which the figures are portrayed. The viewer hovers below and above the subjects. What is offered is a fresh perspective on a familiar scene. This composition may be divided across a triptych or diptych that separates the scene; simultaneously adding to its complexity.

Above all, these paintings offer a beautiful record of fashion that ensures that they are preserved and dated in a definable era, readily creating nostalgia and charm.

For more from Michela, please head to http://www.michelariba.blogspot.com/