PAINTING | taissiabasaria.com

Coney Island Sands 1

18 x 18 inches 2025.
Sand, sea shell powder and oil on canvas.

My work is a fusion of Russian Realism Peredvizhniki style with American Earth Art movement. Painted from observation in oil paint blended with natural materials like sand and sea shell powders. The landscape is a real documentation of the state of the current contemporary landscape not an idealized one of the past. I include plastic fragments, bottle tabs, and sea glass. My work is a tactile depiction of Coney Island shoreline.

I start my paintings by collecting local natural materials including sand, sea shells and stones. Then I prepare the painting ground by mixing acrylic gesso with sand to make a textured surface. Once the textured ground is prepared I start working in oil. No detail is left out; sea shells, seaweeds, plastic debris, bottle tabs and sea glass are all painted realistically in layers of oil paint. I complete the painting by embedding sea shell pearl glitter into the top layer of oil paint to give another layer of tactile materiality to the painting surface.

Boardwalk Home

28 x 38 inches, 2026.
Oil and sand on canvas

My work is a fusion of Russian Realism Peredvizhniki style with American Earth Art movement. Painted from observation in oil paint blended with natural materials like sand and sea shell powders. The landscape is a real documentation of the state of the current contemporary landscape not an idealized one of the past.

The idea of this painting started when I saw a child's drawing of a cityscape. Drawn in chalk on the wooden planks of Coney Island Boardwalk. It reminded me of my own chalk drawings I did as a child and about the innate human desire to experience nature and document the natural habitat which surrounds us.

My work is a tactile depiction of Coney Island boardwalk and the contemporary New York landscape. Painted realistically over a textured ground, which I create by mixing locally collected sand into the acrylic gesso ground. Then I paint the realistic landscape in detailed layers over top of the sandy texture base.

TAISSIA BASARIA