The eighth person on my list is....

10 Most Artistically Inspiring People of 2011

No 8
Anna Dabrowska
for Inspirational Industrial Baroque

OK - so I've had a couple of posts on minimalist artists I LURVE - let me do a 180 turn around and introduce you to the fabulous Finnabair aka Anna Dabrowska-Pekocka, who makes the most lavish and amazingly complex pages I've ever seen (OK so she makes other sorts of things too lol - check out her Flickr gallery, but my to-die-for favourites are her complex pieces).  Now I decided earlier this year that I would no longer 'attempt' to scrapbook, 12 x 12 is not for me and I turned to journals - no regrets.  No sooner had I done this when I discovered the art of this amazing lady, thankfully she is a multi-talented chicky and creates both awesome scrapbook layouts and some of the most gorgeous journal pages and covers.  I had purchased some steampunk embellishments from Scrap Matrix (see the post here) and opted to be on their mailing list.  At some point between then and Christmas I received an email advertising a visiting international artist coming to the store to teach some very special workshops, I seem to be a workshop-aholic so I clicked on the link - looked interesting - so I googled Finnabair and spent several hours on her blog Tworzysko Finnabair seriously drooling.  This will be the ONLY time you ever hear this from me - but right now I WISH I lived closer to Darwin as I wanna go to her “industrial baroque” class!  Sadly I will not be able to attend - airfares are a killer from where I live :O(

What's Industrial Baroque I hear you ask?  It's a term Anna uses to describe a melding of the lavish world of the soft and feminine and the world of industrial metal.  Anna describes it as: 'Grunge is a style, which is, in my opinion, the essence of creative fun and freedom: you can put almost everything on your project and be happy with the effect you got. You may give as much or as little elements as you want, you may use medias and inks… Grunge is usually considered as “boyish” or “men” style, but I'd like to convince you that it also as the more feminine, crazy, eclectic side – let's call it “industrial baroque”.

Some women are interested not only in pretty, colorful, soft embellishments – some of them can also see the beauty in metal and rust, texture and unusual shape... why not to experiment and mix soft and hard elements? Romantic and industrial? Women are full of surprises!'

You can see a few examples of Finnabair's Industrial Baroque style below, click on images for a closer look at the amazing combination of femininity and metal.

Now let me use this next piece as an example...

See that collection of objects around the image, here they are close up

These are the products that make up the collection:

Prima products:

• Item# 843434 - Romantique Col. Estella
• Item# 843458 - Romantique Col. Hedgerow
• Item# 843472 - Romantique Col. Crumpet
• Item# 843748 - 12” X 12” Ledger
• Item# 550004 - Masks
• Item# 530884 - Accent Gems
• Item# 930004 - Vintage Trinkets
• Item# 551711 - Firefly - Tone
• Item# 551988 - Parchment Petals - Antique
• Item# 551995 - Parchment Petals - Scroll
• Item# 552664 - Bretton Vines - Parchment

PLUS

• Chipboard from Dusty Attic
• Tattered Angels Glimmer Mists and Glimmer Glam
• Buttons
• Bingo numbers
• Tiny flowers
• Bottle cap
• Staples
• Lace
• Watchparts
• Paperclips
• Fabric
• Clear acrylic domes (over butterfly)
• Doily

See what I mean about complex pages, and that's just the embellishments and papers around the photo!

As you can see Anna (aka Finnabair) has a style very much her own.  It's feminine, it's grungy, it's highly embellished and decorated and it's gorgeous!  Apart from the obvious, I also love that Anna puts herself into her work, not just her style, but that she uses photos of herself.   I know you'd sooner see my entire family, before you see a pic of me on my own work - THIS WILL CHANGE in 2012.   But what I really find inspiring (other than the fact Anna's art is amazing), is the whole industrial baroque thing - the combining of feminine and masculine - soft and industrial.  It's the 'permission' thing again for me - yes I was a good girl who did what she was told.  In viewing artists work like Anna's I'm beginning to realise that there are very few rules you can't break in art, there's no hard and fast list of - you will and you won't.   Somehow in viewing pieces like this which to my mind are rather 'art-forward' I give myself permission to play, to experiment - to throw-away the 'I can't' mentality and gain the courage to try things!  If I want to add lace and embellish with nail-head brads why not, if I want to use flowers over a brushed metal background why not.  For me, Anna's work helps to break down my pre-conceived ideas about what should be matched with what else and I can't thank her enough for that, what a liberating experience!  I now realise that until this year I've had a very narrow view of art - whether this came from school or just what I was exposed to I don't know, but this year has been an artistic awakening for me, one that has changed my life and my views of art, Anna has been a part of this and I just wanted the chance to say Thank You :O)  So Anna a huge thank you for sharing your Industrial Baroque style of art, I have found it beautiful, eye opening and truly an inspiration.

Images shared with Finnabair's permission.