This work represents a selection of paintings by California-based artist Layla Fanucci, depicting cityscapes based on postcards or photos sent her from far-off places by friends and family. Each painting, whether it represents San Francisco today, New York in the 1920s, or a small town in Italy, are icons of urban wonder seen through the lens of the “wish-I-was-there” desire of a painter in her studio. All of Fanucci’s cityscapes are edited in a manner which best captures the iconic element that identifies the site’s energy and “magic” as a place. In order to achieve this, Fanucci first lays down a base of color, then takes up black paint and spins out a web of interlocking lines and voids which compose a unique urban space, whether old or new world. The result in each canvas is a breathtaking tour de force in which the frantic energy of a wish remains fixed in the tactile speed of the painting itself.
Fanucci sets the tone for each essay in lines with a base of color, applied in oil paint, with expressive brushwork and even drips and other effects creating the desired moody setting. As a result, Paris can be muted and chilly in white, or warm and romantic in red, New York, as lifted from a postcard from the 1920s, warm and sepia, or cold and impersonal in blue or grey.
The great mystery of Fanucci’s work lies in the execution of the urban scene, most often in a single, several-hour long session. Once the color is set, Fanucci takes photo in one hand and brush in another, and sets off with lightning speed making endless difficult decisions at a moment’s notice throughout the non-stop process of creating her web of lines.
Also, while in reproduction Fanucci’s linearity looks light of touch, and almost printed, perhaps reminding one of Dufy or Roualt, seen up close and in person one can see that the mesh is constantly shaken by expressive outbursts, changes of pace or tone, and the instantaneous exercise of a keen intuition as to what is lasting or fleeting in a scene.1
“Fanucci’s paintings are paradoxes in the best sense, strong visual presences, yet somehow immaterial, even dream-like. These paintings exist as evocations of places we inhabit.”2 In her own words, “these paintings embody my complex feelings about cities. I like their energy, accessibility, people, history, and architecture. I also find cities claustrophobic, with the sensory overload of too many people and too much going on. My paintings have the whole range of these feelings, all at the same time- my impression of that place.”3
1 Robert Mahoney | 2 John Mendelsohn | 3 Layla Fanucci
