Art Now and Then: Golsa Golchini

The blending of Expressionism and Realism.

I've always been one to admire palette knife paintings. However, very often that means Expressionist piece in which the artist has tried to render his or her inner-most thoughts a feelings with a thick, impasto style and technique that I doubted I could handle, painting in a more or less realistic style. Nevertheless, I decided to try this rather heavy-handed means of painting in a scene of equestrian foxhunters. I got the painting about three-fourths completed before I realized I just could not render the details typical of my usual style with such a clumsy tool. Even with a knife barely an inch and a half in length, I gave up. The painting sat untouched in a closet for over a year before I decided to try finishing it with a knife bearing a smaller blade only to discover they don't make'em that small. So I had a friend with a grinding wheel fashion one somewhat less than an inch in length. I found it usable in finishing the painting but also decided that the technique was too tedious and time-consuming to use regularly.

Copyright, Jim Lane

Big Ten in Action, 2007, Jim Lane--the realism of a brush, with
the brute strength of palette knife impasto.

Then several years later a gallery owner in Columbus, Ohio, suggested that he could sell as many OSU football paintings as I could produce. Football is a brutal sport so I decided, reluctantly, to once more try my hand with a palette knife. That's when I discovered a marvelous stuff called gel medium. Straight from the tube, it resembles ordinary white acrylic paint. However, as it dries it becomes transparent. So I developed a technique of applying thick globs of gel medium over a finished drawing, letting it dry, then painting the figure in on top of the gel medium. The size of the knife waa immaterial and the finished work (above) was virtually indistinguishable from anything done using a palette knife. Thus I'd arrived at a happy medium between Expressionism and Realism.

A Blue Thought, Golsa Golchini

Iranian-born artist Golsa Golchini took a different road, but also managed to blend the two styles of painting. Golchini combines impasto and digital painting techniques to create miniature worlds of water and ice. Textured mounds of acrylic paint form three-dimensional waves and slopes. Digital paintings of tiny figures are added to the abstract landscapes via ink transfers, with additional details applied by hand (above).The paintings are simple by design. Shadows added beneath the flat transfers, as well as the natural shadows on the raised paint, give the illusion that the swimmers and skiers physically are entering Golchini’s isolated environments. The limited color palette and similar character poses give the body of work a fun, unifying theme.

The Bright Side of My Darkness, Golsa Golchini

Although the artworks are simple, they are usually expressing challenging situations. Her work is composed as if it is meant to look understandable but in the same way, they want to tell the most profound stories of all times. Usually she meets clients who tell her how they see themselves as the protagonists in her work. Mixed media art is breathtaking. The choice of mixing two or more different mediums or materials to create an artwork makes all the difference between "beautiful" and "amazing". The most common examples of mixed media art are assemblages and collages which make use of different materials, from cloth, paper, wood to even random found objects. It looks simple on paper, but when you see what the artist Golsa Golchini has done, the reaction is little short of amazement.

I Am Not a Waterfall, Golsa Golchini

Born in 1986, Golsa Golchini began her artistic career as a photographer, but later moved on to blend it with painting. She now works and lives in Milan, Italy. Her purpose is to portray the invisible behind the visible, through details that allow the spectator to get in contact with his/her soul. She uses a rather limited color palette and the characters resemble one another. In the end, although we're quite isolated in our own little worlds, we're all the same, struggling in the same common situations and having a rather similar spectrum of emotions. The world needs simplicity nowadays. These artworks represent small worlds of ours in which we carry out our dear daily activities in peace. Nevertheless, looking at these swimmers and skiers in their own tiny worlds of molded acrylic paint, their isolated environments eventually strike you. The artist herself has intended for this to happen, as she has added shadows at the edge of the flat transfers, to make you think just that: they're having fun in their tiny little worlds, but they're also isolated from everything else.

A Star, Golsa Golchini

In 2019 Golsa's work was part of a group show "Notice the Small Things" which brought together an eclectic mix of artists for an exhibition dedicated to the art of the miniature. With over 20 contemporary artists spanning two and three dimensions, across a range of disciplines, the exhibition encouraged visitors to slow down and take their time to engage with the intricate details of the multidisciplinary works. Miniature art dates back to the medieval ages, yet became widely popular in 16th century onwards for capturing portraits as keepsakes or mementoes. The most often-used definition of a miniature is something which can be held in the palm of the hand and, as portable objects, they were an apt accessory for remembering loved ones. The small intimacy of the portraits spoke of secretive and passionate love and were at one time a symbol of status.