Paintings Drawings and More
I am a real Southern California artist from Los Angeles. I have had an active art practice since 1991. My work has been seen as expressionism, a more sophisticated form of street art, social realism and figurative. The backgrounds are often floaty and expressive expecially my drawings. I have been called a painter, a sketcher, a social realist and a number of other things, lol but all good. I am an outside artist whose work has grown in sophistication over the years. Labels help others to understand my work and define what I do. For me, painting and drawing everyday is my way of defining what I see while helping others make sense of it all. Emotionally I don't have a choice. I am driven.
I tell stories in pencil and paint. My visual narratives are based on live sketches in malls, cafes, on the metro and in barbershops. I also take my inspiration from bits and pieces of current events, and from the relationships I create about my life and the lives of others
. " "Gun Boy" , Graphite on arches paper, 2015. 30"x 22" unframed, Sold. Drawing is a strong part of my process. In 2012 I placed 3rd. in The Art of Now. As quoted by Peter Frank, well known curator and writer: "What she brings to this time honored practice is a sense of anxious, almost paranoid distortion. Such expressionism doesn't usually pervade renditions this exacting, this naturalistic. Bonassi has brought to the present day the "anxious realism" of the Weimar-era New Objectivity."