I want to share with you my virtual friendship with this exciting artist, Sabina Meschisi, whom I fell in love with on Instagram. I started a friendship with an amazing young botanical artist from Italy on Instagram through private messages and then Whatsapp. I fell in love with one of her works and we figured out a modern solution for me to have it in Mexico.
About Sabina Meschisi and Her Art
Sabina's art involves the union between human anatomy and the plant world in such a unique way that I was blown off my feet the minute I laid my eyes on it. Sabina Meschisi is a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Palermo, and she lives now in Tuscany.
Some of Meschisi's Art Works Explained
Sabina has been inspired by her hometown of Palermo, Sicily, a green landscape beside the sea, and memories of her dear father. This hard-working bricklayer with big hands, would talk and sing to his plants delicately touching them, a beautiful memory for her.
In the last four years, she started painting human anatomy with plants and flowers to pay homage and remember the indissoluble and atavistic union between man and nature. Plants are the lifeblood of life on this beautiful planet we live on. She has always been interested in social issues. Art is an ancient means of narrating/denouncing dramatic realities and I believe that we artists have a duty to document these realities.
Fast Fashion
In the painting Fast Fashion, she tells the dramatic reality of Indian farmers and workers and the cultivation of BT cotton, a genetically modified seed. I now live in the Yucatan in Mexico where we celebrate the memory of our loved ones that have passed away on 'Dia de los Muertos' (Day of the Dead). With symbols of skulls and flowers intermixed in a celebration of remembrance. I found Sabina’s vision a fresh way to see these images.
The Painting of Man With Lotus by Sabina Meschisi
The painting 'Man with Lotus Flowers' represents the will and the search for spiritual elevation and rebirth. Return to a mental, physical, and spiritual state and embrace ourselves and others with love.
Choosing to represent the open chest and show the internal anatomy is a metaphorical way of going beyond the surface (the skin) to look inside (the soul). The Lotus, for Buddhists, is the flower that represents the heart that blossoms thanks to the virtues acquired over time. It also symbolizes purity, wisdom, and strength against adversity.
The painting is a hymn to life, to love, to the union between man and nature. Watercolor works of art are not easily protected from the tropical climate, so we started a conversation about how to make this possible.
We came to an agreement and I had it digitally enlarged and printed on canvas. Here it is in its new home four times the size of the original We have developed a friendship only possible with social media. And now I can’t wait to meet Sabina Meschisi in person.
If you want to check out my new life in Mexico on Instagram.
A Study With Fungi
I asked Sabina if she could describe how it came to this work because I'm totally in awe...
Sabina:
"I am currently making a painting that depicts the human pelvis with mushrooms. In these past four years, I have concentrated my attention/studies on plants and flowers. I also want to devote my attention to the world of mushrooms. Mushrooms are very ancient organisms and live in close collaboration with plants, and it is thanks to this extraordinary balance that there is life on Earth.
My painting can also lead back to the meaning of life and death. Symbolically death does not exist as life continues through new forms. The body nourishes the soil and plants and fungi grow from it. An extraordinary balance in the natural cycle of life on Earth."
Please follow Sabina on Instagram. It would give me great pleasure.
