GEOMUNDO. August 1986 

Text: Blanca Silva Photography: Mario Algaze 

​

 

​

ESTRELLA TRIANA:

HER ART ON WOOD

 

     Samples of her art cover the walls of her apartment in Miami, Florida. Sheets of wood cover the surface of a table in her studio. In a corner there I can see drafts with colored designs. The bookshelves include studies on the characteristics of wood. 

​

     "Six years ago, I started to paint on wood" according to Estrella Triana. She describes her art as a product of the neo-realistic movement. "I need something concrete to create, I am realistic but symbolic" she explains. 

​

     She started to express herself as an artist in oil and acrylic reflecting daily family life. Among these, we can see one inspired on the first pair of shoes of one of a grandchild and one focused on the hand of her husband holding a cigar. Her work now centers on pure imagination inspired by the grooves on sheets of wood. One of her favorites is one she titled Eros. On a vertical sheet of wood, she saw and brought up a couple embraced. The wood grains formed the shape of the bodies. The knots on the wood served to highlight.the three main forces in love: brain, heart and sex(*). 

 

     Her work on wood was not a simple change in the medium of artistic creation. It required her to familiarize herself with a field unknown to her six years ago. 

​

     Estrella recalls "It began when I looked more closely at one of the boxes my husband usually bought with his cigars. The complex grooves in the cedar box made me see the possibility of creating art in such medium". In the grooves of the cedar box, I saw waves, rocks in a beach and a horizon. That became her first work bringing life to wood. 

​

     For a while, she continued painting over the cedar sheets fro the cigar boxes. However, like every artist, Estrela felt the need to explore further .... She began lo look and purchase different kinds of wood at different Miami venues. 

(*) To appreciate her transformation of raw wood into a painting, look at the original untreated wood sheet on which Eros was based, and the finished painting in the section of "Paintings that Give Life to Wood".

 

     Her search carried her to wood supplier cabinetmaker stores. She ould observe sheets of wood and imagine what creation the wood grains suggested. "It takes time to find a sheet of wood that can say something". 

​

     Once she selected a piece of wood, she would work on a design inspired on the wood gains. "I follow the patterns in the wood grain until I visualize the design in the wood". 

"At that point, I start experimenting with color. Each sheet of wood presents unique colors and textures. Some are light, others dark; some sharp others smooth; some mixed. I enjoy the most experimenting with color, not knowing exactly how the wood will react to the paint." She comments. As an anecdote, she said that in a recent painting she obtains a finish like a de moire clothe which she had not expected. 

As a general rule, the less porous the wood, have the ideal texture for absorbing the paint. "I like to work on cedar and pine especially. However, I have been very pleased with canalete, a type of wood abundant in Venezuela" she explains and adds "The canalete is different because it has more knots than other woods, and I love to come up with designs inspired on them". 

​

     At any rate, Estrella Triana experiments with colors before painting the wood. "I begin by drawing sketches on paper where I test harmony using color pencils" she explains. As an example of this phase of her work, she tells us that one of the Beach paintings required four different sketches to imagine it at dawn or during sunset. "Finally, I decided for the sunset and used more yellow" 

​

     Estrella Triana success with this new medium for expression can be measured by its public acceptance. "In each of my exhibition with different painting mediums, I end up selling all the woods shown" she says. She is not sure as to why her unique medium has such acceptance. She thinks it may be because of the time she takes to choose which piece of wood has a message, as well by the time she takes to design and play with colors. Above all, the mark of her as a true artist is her passion to share the beauty in her imagination. 

​

​

​

Estrella Triana, is a Cuban based in Miami, Florida. who cultivated her art for years. Her paintings have been exhibited in San Juan, Puerto Rico (where she resided previously), in Washington DC, and in Miami.