Stella Alesi has had one constant in her life - her passion as a painter. She is drawn to the simple beauties provided in life and is a master at encapsulating them in her artwork. Stella has excelled in two distinct painting styles over the body of her career: realistic and mandala. The realistic works consist of her botanical paintings and the vanitas series, which draw their imagery directly from nature. Alesi’s mandala paintings—influenced by the sacred art of the Buddhist and Hindu religions—implement circular aesthetics to facilitate meditative thought.
View all of Stella Alesi's work.
Pyracantha I is part of a series of paintings Alesia did that explored her everyday natural world. Feeling a need to connect with nature, she would go out into her neighborhood armed with her camera and search for plants that produced fruits and berries. Alesia would spend a long time exploring each plant, at times revisiting at different times of day, or a week or two later, documenting the changes. She remembers that for this particular image, she crawled to the inside of the pyracantha bush--no easy feat, as they are spiny--and photographed from that direction. Alesia loved the way the light surrounded everything.
