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<\/figure>\n\n\n\nOf dual heritage, the offspring of an Italian Jewish father and Columbian mother, artist Crystal Fischetti\u2019s childhood was spent living between London and Rome. Crystal trained as a professional dancer and performed professionally until her teens while attending a wacky independent London school where transcendental meditation and daily yoga was practiced alongside Latin and Ancient Greek.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Crystal Fischetti, Bliss With You, 2020. Courtesy of the artist and Grove Square Galleries<\/p>\n\n\n\n After graduating with a degree in Fine Art from Leeds University and an MA from Chelsea College of Art, Crystal made her solo show debut in New York, before moving to LA, where she would take to the streets, interacting with the public as she painted. <\/p>\n\n\n\n During her seven years living in the City of Angels, she made art, painted murals and saw much of Hollywood\u2019s glitz. Then Covid struck. She decided to leave the US for Mexico the day before America closed its borders and remained there until she returned to London in the Autumn. Once she returned to British soil, Grove Square Gallery gallery found her and wanted to represent her in a solo show, which cast a silver lining over 2020. \u201cI\u2019m so thrilled to be taken on by a gallery who really sees me and the work,\u201d Fischetti exclaims. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Defined by her intrigue and place within the mystical, Fischetti is a healer as well as an artist. These two arguably intuitive and ultimately – in her case – entwined practices represent the connection to humanity as a cosmic whole. Fluent in four languages, thanks to her Italian father and Columbian mother, in addition to making art, she teaches it as therapy to students all over the world via one-to-one tuition and as well as subscription-based workshop and tutorial service. She calls this her ancestral responsibility, which is secondary to her painting. \u201cIt is my duty to be a light shower. It\u2019s important that a shaman performs their healing work as a second job, not the first\u201d, she explains.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Crystal Fischetti, No Ordinary Reality, 2020. Courtesy of the artist and Grove Square Galleries<\/p>\n\n\n\n In her practice of abstract painting to performance art, she follows in the path of other female troubadours such as Judy Chicago, Hilma af Klint and Marina Abramovic who have explored ideas of ritual and mysticism in their art. During her lifetime (1862\u20131944), Hilma af Klint alleged to have communicated with spirits through s\u00e9ances and claimed that she was sometimes controlled by spirits. Carl Jung put forth the idea that \u201cArt Therapy\u201d can be used as a tool to treat anxiety, trauma and fear and Fischetti has fully integrated this concept into her lifestyle and practice. <\/p>\n\n\n\n What these pioneers and practitioners share, broadly speaking, is an interest in ritualistic, folkloric practices and it is this bridge that forms the common thread in Fischetti\u2019s life, work and ancestral background. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As the descendent of a long line of shamanic ancestors dating back 500 years on her mother\u2019s side, Fischetti explains that healing is part of her DNA but it wasn\u2019t immediately apparent of how to take this out of the context of her own painting. Her grandmother was a fully indigenous shaman who spoke in Quecha, the surviving language of the Inca empire. Her mother too is clairvoyant, \u201cshe will not thank me for saying this\u201d, she says.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Crystal Fischetti, To Be Home, 2020. Courtesy of the artist and Grove Square Galleries<\/p>\n\n\n\n In February until the end of March 2021, the Fitzrovia gallery will present her solo exhibition. Entitled \u201cHello again\u201d, the show will feature three dozen new paintings. Symbolic of Fischetti\u2019s 36 years, each work is a visual journal of the entire year. She\u2019s excited about transforming the white cube into an immersive colour scape with canvasses on the walls and hanging loosely and colourfully from structures. The works have been created through a process of staining, soaking and dripping onto and through fabrics as gestural and multi-layered, representing visible and invisible narratives. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The finished pieces will be presented as an immersive canopy aimed at blurring the boundaries between nature and civilisation, culture and environment. Inspired by some of her insights from \u201cbeyond the veil\u201d, she says that she wants to draw people in to engage with the work. \u201cPaintings that aren\u2019t in frames bring in community,\u201d she notes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n All artworks are created from Fischetti\u2019s own bedsheets, each one painted on on layers so that liquids soak into another canvas, keeping toxic waste to a minimum. She makes paint from her own botanical dyes and is currently drying flowers in her kitchen so she can turn them into paint. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As for the current global situation, she acknowledges that historically, it will be an interesting year to look back on. \u201cWell, you either make lemons from lemonade or leave them on the floor,\u201d she acknowledges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/staging.centmagazine.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/hello-again-healing-art-2.jpg?resize=580%2C355&ssl=1\")
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