Guiselt Thaiz works in the medium of painting and sculpture. With her canvas laid directly on the floor, Thaiz applies pigment to the unprimed canvas; the paint seeps fluidly into the fabric, impregnating it with bright, explosive colour. Layering with gestural calligraphic brushstrokes or chunky impasto, she creates contrasting ethereal images with bulky, heavy layers. Thaiz challenges the idea of naivety in her work, wavering between control and 'play'. She says her interest in the natural world "instilled a sense of wildness in my creative process, which has led me to prioritise freedom over control in my work". The playful, active nature of working on an unprimed canvas creates spontaneity and a soft romanticism that wavers between abstraction and representation. This also creates a soft focus on the pieces, like pictural photography, creating a nostalgic, dreamy and transient aesthetic inspired by the likes of Imogen Cunningham. Thaiz is also incorporating aspects of graphic design and illustration, harking back to her time as a graphic designer and illustrator for children's books, the likes of Ikko Tanaka inspire her.
Thaiz experiments with bright colours, painting through her memory of growing up by the colourful Caribbean Sea. Inspired by nature, Thaiz reflects on her childhood and the German forest, traversed with the everyday graffiti characterising Berlin, where she currently resides. She experiments with the idea of home, living in-between spaces; in her own words, "I see myself like an island", the feeling of being unrooted or 'rootless' reflected in the composition of her paintings.
Her work borrows from classical mythology and literature imagery to create expansive paintings. She explores various themes, including migration and its nostalgia for the landscape, the female body, womanhood and 'play'. With a background in performance and ballet, Thaiz sometimes uses music, using the tempo, rhythm and her body's movement to guide the work, resulting in active, playful and bodily work. This is particularly present in her sculpture.
In this current project, "Mammals Mothers/ El que no grita no mama", Thaiz continues to explore womanhood by looking more specifically at motherhood from the perspective of the daughter and woman and ideas of creation - as a mother, as an artist.
Bio
Born in New York City, and raised in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.
At the age of four I was introduced to classical ballet, studied rigorously for 20 years.
until switching my focus to Visual Arts and attending Altos de Chavon School of Design where I graduated
with a degree in Visual Communication. From there begins an ongoing period of migration. I moved first to Buenos
Aires, then to New York City, and on to Berlin to attend the University of Arts Berlin (UdK).
My creative focus has always drawn me towards exploring identity- my own, and that of larger collective. In
order to do so, my practice uses multiple media, including performative elements.