Oriana Gerez

Personal History

Gerez has been interested in art her entire life. At 10 years old, her parents would let her use the blank exterior walls of their home to paint whatever she wanted. So, she would paint murals on them. As a teenager, she won an art competition where you had to paint a landscape of her city.

When it was time for college, Gerez decided to pursue a degree in the sciences, graduating from Northeastern University with a degree in physics and a minor in math. After that, she continued to pursue physics by going to graduate school at Florida International University in Miami. But at some point, she decided grad school wasn’t for her and turned her attention back to art.

“Being trained in science helps you develop a more analytical mind and more attention to detail,” said Gerez. “So, to me, everything is very results-oriented. I plan a painting before I start it. I always have a picture of what I want it to look like at the end. And I’m very methodical as well.”

Inspirations and Process

Even before deciding to be an artist full time, Gerez found inspiration by going to lots of major art museums around the world, saying “I’ve always kind of absorbed art through going through as many museums as I can.”

Being a big Star Wars fan, she got started painting Stormtroopers, Darth Vader, Princess Leia, R2 D2 – all of the characters. Then, she branched out into creating paintings that were more representative of today’s women in a way that allowed any woman to see herself in the finished artwork.

Her technique of incorporating three-dimensional flowers came to her when she was working on a portrait of the artist, Frida Kahlo. Gerez thought about the fact that Kahlo liked using all her crowns and headpieces. And Gerez already had a whole body of work featuring women with flowers covering the top portions of their heads. So, she thought, since she liked painting all these flowers, what if she put real, three-dimensional flowers as a headpiece for her? She did that and added some butterflies and that became the start of her now famous technique. She started doing that for all her women pieces.

To create her flower women, she first lays down an acrylic underpaint. Then she uses layers and layers of oil to add realism and depth with the play of shadows and lights to make it as accurate as she can. She then adds the three-dimensional flowers, which always cover their eyes.

“When I’m painting the women with the flower heads, the idea is that any woman can see themselves in them,” explained Gerez. “They have their eyes covered because once you uncover the eyes, it’s just not beautiful women – but it’s a specific beautiful woman. The idea behind taking the eyes out of the piece is that anyone can see themselves and it kind of keeps the mystery.”

She also integrates a lot of fashion into her art with these women. The headpieces are the big thing for them, but now she spends a lot of time designing the dresses as well. Gerez can play with fashion in these paintings and that adds unlimited possibilities for each painting, as she says she’ll never run out of ideas for doing all their dresses.

Gerez’s work defies categorization, she describes it as, “some of the pieces are not really pop art, but not fully fine art either. It’s vibrant, unique, mixed media.”

Accomplishments

Gerez has won many awards and has been collected all over the world. Her art is in the collections of luminaries ranging from Tony Hawk to Carrot Top. She also owns an art gallery in Miami where she supports emerging artists.

Her many exhibitions include:

• NY Art Expo
• Aspen Art Gallery
• Park Avenue Contemporary Art Gallery
• New Art Center
• Raw Boston Expo
• And many more