Gia Canali
GLB: How long have you been painting, doing photography?
Gia: I've been making artwork as long as I can remember, since I was a little girl in the Rocky Mountains creating imagined worlds in my wildflower garden. I got my first SLR film camera in 1998 or 1999 and have steadily been using the tools of photography in my artwork since then. Painting is a more recent addition to my work, really only since 2018 when I picked up my art practice in earnest. I think I paint like a photographer in that I'm (still) obsessed with making time explicit in my painting practice.
GLB: Where do you find inspiration?
Gia: I'm such an LA girl: I find a lot of inspiration out and about in the world, and wherever I'm running or driving, in particular. There's a way you learn to (scan and) see very quickly when you're driving or running, similar to how you see when you set out to make a photograph. Plus, you're out with all the signs, and signs are things I revisit from time to time in my work. My Colorwash series was originally inspired by my love of the drive-through car wash -- they just throw all those pastel colors on the panel of the windshield! It's such a happening. Sometimes I'll be stuck in traffic behind a truck and think, wow, that chain swinging on the door has left a gorgeous gesture. I love watching the shadows and reflections of things as I pass, and that has found its way into my Reflections series. Salt for Salt, my new Morse Code Series, evolved specifically out of photographs I made on the run. And the series I'm deep into now is also inspired by running and driving up and down one mountain in Sicily.
GLB: How would you describe your work in 3 words?
Gia: Serendipity meets devotion
GLB: What is your favorite piece?
Gia: I have shifting alliances! Usually there are one or two in each series I get really attached to. Right now I'm super into these cyanotype directional signs with snakes.
GLB: Anything new you are working on that you’d like to talk about?
Gia: Yes! I did a residency this past summer in Tusa, which is a mountaintop village in Sicily and although I tried really hard to make work while I was there, I mostly just went up and down and up and down the mountain, driving my car, riding the bus, running on my own two feet. I got into a lot of trouble (snakes, farm dogs, flat tires, herds of animals, wildfires, et cetera) and, using my limited Italian, had to figure out how to get out of it. I fell in love, not only with the town, but also with the beautiful geometric abstraction of the Italian directional signs--which are different from ours in LA--and the wrecked, often layered, improvisational fences that do little to contain the wildlife or wild plants in the countryside. As I left (read: fled the wildfires), I started making cyanotype work that delves into the language of the road: construction fences, chains, ropes, and especially the wordless "universal" code of the directional signs, how they implicate and can abstract the body and bodies. I have personal narrative and symbolism woven into the pieces too. I'm deep into making the works right now and I'm so curious to see how it will all come out.
Just before I left for Sicily, I was finishing Salt for Salt, a project I'd started in summer 2022 in Sardinia that works with photographs, largely made on runs, holographic material borrowed from my Reflections series, and hand-punched Morse code--mostly Q code and quotes from literature--to build a one sided narrative conversation. As with the Sicily work, this is "about" code, though Morse code can be understood across distance and darkness, whereas the directional signs are so in person. There are all these outmoded forms of communication that appear in the series, antennae, telephone poles, a lighthouse, and some beautiful vistas that feel like post cards, which always imply an absent other. I'm understanding that body of work differently now that I'm into the next body of work. This body of work, I see now, is about choosing to disconnect.
Fun fact, I stumbled upon working on the Morse code series: Samuel Morse was a painter before he invented Morse Code!
GLB: Where can we see your work?
Gia: I am digitally demure in the best of times, but intermittently @giacanali on instagram or www.giacanali.art, or in person by booking a studio visit.
I have a monograph of the Colorwash / Reflections series, CW/R, available here https://www.giacanali.art/monograph
What do you love about being an artist in Los Angeles?
I think LA is the place to be to make (art) work right now. There's so much good work available to see here, every single weekend. It's not like NY where you (almost) don't have to work to find it. In LA, you really have to get out there, usually in your car, to see shows, performances, or exhibits, but it's so rewarding. I love having studio visits and doing studio visits with other artists. Plus: we believe things are possible here in LA, and that is practically magic in an art practice. There are so many artists working in varied and inventive ways, from so many diverse creative and cultural backgrounds, and we are constantly giving each other permission to try new things, move in new directions. And that is also magic.
GLB: What are your favorite LA spots?
Gia:
Griffith Park
Studio City Farmer's Market
Skylight Books
The Iliad
Tabula Rasa Bar and Shop
Golddiggers
Joy on York
Too many galleries and museums to list, but Ochi Gallery, De Boer, M+B, David Kordansky Gallery, and Hauser + Wirth are all favorites
The Craft in America Center
The Corita Art Center
My Friend's Place in Hollywood
