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By Rodney Pygoya Chang
Roberta Masciarelli's mixed media works reveals a dynamic balance between two major aspects of the artist's aesthetic core. On canvas, spirited play as expressed in pure flat and solid colors are embraced by rhythmic lyrical lines, revealing an optimism about life and the world that we share and reside.
 It is almost as if some of the shapes and forms want to fly out of the confining borders of the flat painted surfaces. By moving into the third dimension, overriding sculptural elements succeed in exiting the containment of pictorial space. But the artist's expertise in architecture retrain these exuberant elements, mooring them to a physical base that successfully anchors the works' integrity in physical space, also making the wall upon which the assemblages hang appear secondary as support and visually redundant.
Masciarelli's 3-dimensional elements over the past few years have steadily and successfully expanded from the containing cocoon of pictorial composition to coexist - as well as transform, in their own right as sculptural works of art that exist within, above, or outside their pictorial canvas frame of reference.
The artist's masterful attention to incorporating 3-D wooden, visual elements also as framing support add a unique artistic experience when viewing the works at an angle. The individual parts fit together with logic and preciseness, eliciting a sense of unity as member pieces of the same puzzle.
Such attention to construction provides evidence of an architect's mind and skill at work. So the solution of assembly for each specific construction suggests the ability of more than just that of a painter of 2-dimensional work or a sculptor of free-standing form.
 Masciarelli is also a meticulous builder - of form and function. Without the constrictions of paint and canvas, the versatile artist can also create in real, outdoor space, enabling her lyrical elements of wood and paint to exist merely in air, freeing them from the confines of dwelling and frame to become one with nature.
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