The remarkable artist and graphic designer Chana Messer creates beautiful, emotionally evocative paintings which express her personal powerful narrative. An exhibition of her paintings will open on October 2nd at the Terrell Moore Gallery in Downtown Los Angeles.
Messer, a fine artist for more than thirty years, works with oil and acrylic paint as well as with mixed media on both canvas and paper. She brings her impressive wealth of knowledge, wisdom, and passion to all of her work. Teaching in fine arts and digital imaging, she currently serves as the lead instructor of Walt Disney Imagineering and of the UCLA Visual Arts Department. Messer's graphic design company, Mac-In-Art, specializes in creating corporate identity, interactive multimedia design, packaging design, and film posters. Mac-In-Art provides these services for clients such as Warner Brothers, Sony, Disney, Universal, Mattel, Houlihan & Lockey, Nike, Apple, and Adobe.
In our interview, Messer and I discuss her artistic process and the powerful meaning of her art:
L.C. Please describe the process through which you approach the creative visual elements that encompass the style and aesthetic of your magnificent paintings.
C.M. When I paint I think of colors and shapes. I think of events and ideas that run through my mind and I translate them into a painting. I walk on the beach with my dog in the Palisades, and the view translates into a painting when I get to my studio.
L.C. Which conceptual aspects of your paintings unify your exhibit as a whole?
C.M. The paintings in the exhibit are a collection of work that started sixteen years ago. The paintings with the silhouettes and picket fences represent, for me, my past, my heritage. I grew up as a daughter of Holocaust survivors and this carries with me throughout my artistic life and my daily being. I always think about my family that I never got to meet and about my parents, who went through hell to survive. I painted with darker colors, and used the silhouettes and fences to depict my emotion.
As I moved on with my life, I moved on with my art. I started to change colors - the new colors represent hope and survival. Hope for a better life, hope for peace in the world.
The silhouettes always come back into my life... I guess no matter what I will never forget my heritage.
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