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Paula E. Borsetti
USA
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“I believe that authentic work is created through looking within, getting lost in the process and letting the work take on a life of its own.”
Paula Borsetti’s richly layered abstract acrylic paintings burst with color and movement. Her works contain a history of mark making that comes alive on the surface of her paintings through adding, subtracting, sanding, scraping, drawing, and layering. She loves to employ any and all methods of working with materials. Her muses are the coast and the lake, the woods and the marsh, family and friends.
Press Play | Acrylic
$3,000
36 X 48
"Press Play" represents reflecting back on where life has taken us. A meditation on memories of events and choices made when faced with life, perhaps happy, perhaps difficult.
Paula’s passion is parsing together snippets of life into layered story paintings. She is most comfortable with some sort of mark making tool in her hands, creating works from within. From her studio in Beverly, MA., where she has lived all her life, she is painting daily and loving every minute.
We Interrupt This Regularly Scheduled Broadcast | Acrylic
$3,000
36 X 48
"We Interrupt This Regularly Scheduled Broadcast"
speaks facts about ALS in the underpainting but on top of it are joyful colors and moments. This painting references what happens when our life as we know it is interrupted, the darkness and light that appear.
Paula Borsetti didn’t always call herself an artist, but she does now. She has worn many hats; daughter, friend, sister, wife, mother, nana, bookkeeper, scholar, teacher, and artist. Paula’s love of creating art started young but got its “divine intervention” while she was studying with Sr. Vincent de Paul Curran during her high school years. Sister encouraged her to go to art school and there her love of learning took off. Paula studied painting with many mentors who were artists first, like Sr. Vincent, Jason Berger, Domenic Cretara, Joe Jeswald, Thorpe Feidt and Barbara Donnelly that encouraged her along her path.
“In June 2020 I made the leap from full time teaching to full time artist.”
She continued her studies after art school, taking classes and workshops and eventually found her way into the classroom. Teaching high school art fueled her creativity and her desire to discover unique ways to use materials to share with her students. She was determined that students find their own voice through experiential learning, encouraging freedom, and experimentation.
In The Act of Living | Acrylic
$3,000
60 X 38
"In The Act of Living" represents a moment, day, week, month, year. Navigating life inside and out, messy, beautiful, chaotic life.
"Bobby Loves Gumbo" has to be viewed to the tune of Papa Loves Mambo, and then some zydeco. All the ingredients dance with each other and land in this painting reflecting on Bobby's love of New Orleans.
Bobby Loves Gumbo | Acrylic
$1,200
18 X 18
As with many others, the pandemic profoundly changed Paula’s outlook on the future. She decided it was time to jump into the practice she had been nurturing for so long. To her, every step of the journey is a pivotal moment. The learning coming from living life, swishing it around, and talking about it with paint. Letting the story unfold through marks, brush strokes, exciting beginnings, messy middles, and strong endings.
“Currently my work comprises two series. Coastal finds the intricacies in the shore, the colors, smells, sounds, shapes, movements, and layers those moments into the paintings. Rock formations have always held a special place in my work and small collections and piles of rocks can be found all over my home and studio.”
“The sunrise draws most mornings for contemplative walks along the shore embedding the sights, shapes, sounds, smells, and textures into my being to be extracted later in the studio.”
The PALS series, while different, is interconnected with Coastal. In this series Paula is investigating and expressing the challenges of living with fatal and chronic disease. Primarily it is about her friend's journey living life with ALS. The impact of the disease, not only on the person who has it, but on everyone connected to them. While Bobby was diagnosed 8 years ago at the age of 26, the life expectancy is only 2-5 years. He is still fighting and remains determined to see a cure. Paula decided the only way she could help is through her art.
Please Come Over | Acrylic
$1,200
18 X 18
When we are in isolation sometimes we can't ask but want to say "Please Come Over". We can be so close yet so far apart. Social, mental and physical isolation has been a challenge these past few years.
She has held numerous fundraisers over the years, but this series is really about helping to process the trauma of diagnosis and heighten awareness. Not just for Bobby but for others facing chronic and debilitating illnesses. These paintings are expressions of that journey through process, color, line, shape, texture, movement, symbols, and discovery. Paula’s goal is to convey a sense of hope in the dialogue, reflections and reading of the work.
Last Night I Had a Dream of the Seaside | Acrylic
$2,500
18 X 54
Sometimes the seaside is experienced in a vessel, sometimes from the shore. The sound of the waves washing over the rocks and surprises in the shapes. Fresh soothing color came together in this dream for this painting. This is a triptych made of 3 18 x 18 panels.
Through the process of creating these paintings Paula often uses words, facts and figures as the underpainting. This process of writing, covering up, writing again, covering again mimics some of the stages of dealing with illness. Areas get confused, wiped out, painted over, clarified, and perhaps muddied again the act symbolic.
Looking below the surface to find treasure. Even at a microscopic level. How beautiful to uncover unexpected treasure that lead to research and discovery.
Sometimes on the Surface We Don't See the Treasures Below | Acrylic
$2,200
10 X 30
“My process is both intuitive and driven by the environment and experiences of everyday life.”
Today the Possibilities are Endless | Acrylic
$2,500
30 X 30
I walk to the sunrise any chance I get. I love to go to the same place and see it with new eyes every day. In this tide pool hope and possibility are reflected back at me.
Paula states “Watching a dear friend live with ALS has awoken a heightened sense to the meaning of every moment in my work. I start with words, words that my friend can no longer speak, words that describe how I feel, how others may feel. The words are the underpainting. I think about facts and figures and how hopeless this disease may seem. I think about neurons and misfires and connections that are no longer established. I am not a scientist or a doctor. I am a mom and an artist who is trying to understand through creating work how to process what is happening. And on top of it all I want to convey a sense of hope. I am the fortunate one. I get to do what I love every day. By using my creativity and passion to express who I am and how I feel about this life at this given moment, this wrinkle in time.”
The sand, the sea, the salt, the stones, the sunrise. They wash over me and become a part of me leaving traces each day. Both warm and cool each day is a renewal.
Cracking Open at Dawn | Acrylic
$2,500
58 X 36
You can find Paula’s work at the Salted Cod Gallery in Rocky Neck, Gloucester, the North Shore Art Association, on her website www.paulaborsetti.com and IG @locuststreetstudios. She is a proud member of Art Show International, NAWA, NAWAMA, Rocky Neck Art Colony, See/Me Gallery and Manhattan Arts International. She is a featured artist with The Circle Foundation, ArtsyShark and Art Show International. Paula’s work was published in the inaugural issue of Women United Art Movement magazine, and she will be having a solo show with Women United Art Movement in March of 2023.
Beneath | Acrylic
$2,500
58 X 36
Every day the tide comes in and goes out. Each day what is covered and uncovered is different. I could imagine a party under the sea while the tide was high, one that I could attend, but I could imagine.
“My wish is that people connect to my work in some way, people who are finding their way as well, every moment, every day, because every moment matters.”
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