MEDIA
Inspired by the natural world, Arabella Caccia weaves her vision across diverse mediums. Her practice often begins with a direct engagement with the landscape. While traveling to remote places, she paints in situ, capturing the essence of the scenery on paper or board. From these initial works, she distills the shapes and patterns she finds repeating in nature, which then take on a new life in her larger works. Her practice moves between embroidery, sculpture, oil on board, and mixed media on paper, each piece a quiet conversation between nature and form.
PROCESS
Arabella Caccia's creative process is a deeply personal journey, one that begins with immersion and travels throughout the vast and wild landscapes of Africa. Her art is fundamentally a response to these places, a distillation of her experiences into a unique visual language. The initial spark for her work often comes from her expeditions to remote and untouched parts of the continent. Travelling across Southern Africa, she seeks out the solitude and silence of the wilderness. In these locations, she engages directly with the environment, creating initial sketches and paintings in situ on paper or board.
These raw, immediate landscapes serve as the foundation for everything that follows, capturing the essence of the moment and the unique play of light and dark on natural forms. From these field studies, Arabella Caccia begins a process of refinement and abstraction. She meticulously observes the patterns that repeat in nature - the textures of tree bark, the formations of rock, or the intricate designs of plants. Through detailed drawings, moulds, and prints, she uncovers what she sees as "the alphabet of nature." These universal forms, found in everything from the bark of a Baobab tree to a lichen on a stone, become the building blocks of her art. This alphabet then takes on a new life as she translates it into various mediums.
Her creative practice is a fluid conversation between nature and form, moving seamlessly from oil paintings and mixed media on paper to delicate embroideries and powerful sculptures. Each medium offers a different way to express the same underlying truth. The meditative focus of embroidery, the textural quality of oil on board, and the three-dimensional presence of her sculptures all serve to explore the shapes and patterns she has discovered. Arabella Caccia's work aims to serve as a bridge between the wild places she travels and the viewer. It's a testament to the importance of process and a quest to communicate the awe and wonder she experiences in nature. By sharing her creative journey and the universal forms she finds, she invites others to cultivate a similar appreciation for the beauty and magic of the natural world.