Nadja Gabriela Plein, Voiceless Joy, 2017

Nadja Gabriela Plein is a Swiss abstract painter currently working in London. Abstract art, unlike realism where the context is more obvious, is often ambiguous. It allows an artist to tell a story and allows a viewer to interpret that message, usually offering different perspectives than what the artist had in mind. For such a complex form of art, each abstract artist is uniquely influenced. Plein’s influence comes from music.

Nadja Gabriela Plein, Home, 2017

Plein has a background in musicality, earning her doctorate from the Royal College of Music in London. She describes, “One of my main areas of research in music composition was the idea of pausing within a sound world, exploring the possibility of investigating the dynamic nature of sound non-dynamically, from a still place. Gradually this research led me outside of music, following a path of investigating musicality outside of sound.”

Nadja Gabriela Plein, Exuberance of Small Things, 2017

A second influential component of her works is meditation, a Buddhist mindfulness that explores “the practice of present-moment awareness watching,” she further describes.

Interestingly, these two influencers for Plein are uniquely linked. The link between music and meditation is time. Plein explains, “Both are acutely aware of time. For music, time is the canvas on which it paints. For meditation, time is the thing that shows us the impermanence of all things. Painting has become my still place from which to watch the flux of things.”

Nadja Gabriela Plein, Unuttered Jubilation of the Heart, 2017

Plein paints on a variety of substrates including aluminum, plexiglass, canvas and even paper. Yet, she began Dibond aluminum composite about one year ago. She explains, “I use Dibond because I enjoy the extreme smoothness of it. It allows brushstrokes to be seen with a clarity and crispness that I have not found with any other surface except aluminum.”

Nadja Gabriela Plein, Walking Kind Steps (like dancing only for the road-touch), 2017

When describing her method of preparation she describes, “I use oil paint and I paint directly on the Dibond surface without additional prep. When I first started painting on Dibond I experimented with using sealers and gesso but eventually found that I preferred painting directly on the Dibond surface to make the most of its smoothness.”

Nadja Gabriela Plein, Felicity, 2017

Her dimensional works are colorful and raw, featuring abstracted forms that invoke a poignant response. The musicality is apparent, imagining the artist being influenced by the notes of a song and painting their composition.

information and photography courtesy of Nadja Gabriela Plein