inspired by: liz brizzi

It isn't often that you can look through an artist's entire portfolio and just really love absolutely everything you see, but that is how I felt after coming across the artwork of Los Angeles based mixed media artist Liz Brizzi. 

The Gateway

Untitled

The Last Train

Allegory

Fragments

Water Tower

Outskirts

Delusion

I'm not an art critic, a trained writer or anything in between so you'll have to bear with me while I try to describe everything I appreciate about Liz's artwork and how it makes me feel (which is a lot!)

Like previously featured artist Jessica Hess, Liz's work explores the often overlooked beauty of urban landscapes, layering the solemn shapes of industrial architecture over vibrant acrylic washes and street-art inspired textures. Born in France to Italian parents, she's lived in Los Angeles but travels to various metropolitan areas (even moving alone to Italy for almost a year) to gain inspiration for different approaches to her art. 

My favorite aspect of her work is how the roughness and visible tactility of multiple layers of paint, paper, and her original photography are the perfect catalyst for her subject matter... In each painting, raw silhouettes of bridges, streetlights and buildings area easily transformed from potentially solemn scenes into really bright, bold urban dreamscapes. I also love that there is sort of a pop-art aspect to a lot of her pieces too... she doesn't shy away from incorporating text, faces, fragmented lines and images to give each piece a gritty abstract feel.

The brighter pieces in particular make me think of those rare, awesome moments after an evening storm passes through a city, when light and color seems to bounce off wet concrete and brighten the normally grey surfaces sparkle with sunset color. The colors are dramatic and vivid without being an eyesore. Her work is just awesome! I can't get over it. I'm pretty obsessed with "The Gateway" and though the original is a little out of my reach, I'm buying a print for our apartment from Liz's Society 6 print shop. You can check out the rest of her portfolio here or keep up with her new work on her Facebook fan page.