STATEMENT:

Using figuration, vivid colors, and symbolism, my paintings use humor and abrupt juxtapositions of bodies and objects to reexamine societal ideas regarding women and illuminate today's world through the female gaze, psychology, and experience. In my work, women are as fulfilled, deep and complex as their male counterparts and play important and powerful roles in all facets of society. While the nude female figure is prominent in my paintings, the nudity is less about sexuality and more about an unapologetic openness and awareness of our varied experiences. 

BIO:

Dorielle Caimi (b.1985) is an American oil painter living and working in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Caimi completed a BFA (Summa Cum Laude) in Painting from Cornish College of the Arts in 2010. Her works have been exhibited internationally, and reviewed in publications as: American Art Collector, Beautiful Bizarre Magazine, Hi-Fructose Magazine [2][3][4][5], Juxtapoz Magazine [2], Southwest Contemporary Magazine (cover), and The Huffington Post. 

In 2015, Caimi was awarded the $10,000 William and Dorothy Yeck Award for work that "visually responds to painting in the 21st century" juried by Lacma's Franklin Sirmans. In 2019, she was selected as one of 10 finalists for the $50,000 Bennett Prize For Women Figurative Realists. Her works have been acquired by the Miami University Permanent Art Collection, The Tullman Collection, Ashley Longshore (private collection), Residente (private collection), and The Muskegon Museum of Art permanent collection. 

 . . . . . .

“The nudity of her figures is not sexless, but neither is it sensual. That would be too banal a celebration. The figures in Caimi’s works are in the throes of an ecstasy far greater. They are human and they are becoming something more. They stare at the viewer with a vision beyond our senses, into a realm of experience so pure and profound that it escapes easy categorization.”

-Hi-Fructose Magazine, Vol. 64, Sept. 2022

 "Oil painter Dorielle Caimi's work offers Renaissance-reminiscent nude portraits in a startlingly bright color palette. Her subjects’ bodies betray their classical roots with sunburns or neon pubic hair. The images also incorporate objects and animals meant to scratch away the composure of the portrait, revealing the subject’s internal world. The faces of these women portray the tensions between their surface expressions and their emotional struggles. Caimi says her paintings 'explore the relationship between grace and angst that both plague and glorify the private worlds of young women.'"

                                                                                                        -Rachel Cassandra, Juxtapoz Magazine, 2015

"Examining the idea of innocence as a virtue lost too soon, Caimi’s nude figures resist vulgarity and sexualization. The bright, vivid colors serve to draw the viewer in closer to the women, whom the artist imbues with psychological complexities. Incorporating a dark sense of humor and a vision of what an authentic self might look like, Caimi lays bare her own personal psyche, creating bold paintings that speak to, and for, a larger generation."  

-Gusford L.A. press release on Complex Candy (2014)

"The female nude has long served as a traditional presentation of the female body, and has continued to provoke debate through self-aware contemporary practitioners such as John Currin. As a result of the critical gaze bestowed upon the female, women have inherited a position in the lens of popular culture that is filled with psychological and emotional struggle. Thus Caimi contends that the female body is not simply “eye candy,” but one of a “complex” variety. By employing traditional techniques in the presentation of the female body, the Albuquerque-based artist forces the audience to reconsider the female nude."          

                                                                                                                         -A. Moret, Art LTD., 2014

"Caimi's oil paintings are deeply feminine. They depict not only the nude female form but also showcase the artist's ability to capture extreme emotion and difficult subject matter. These paintings are largely an exploration of characteristics associated with women. The feminization and universal angst found within the work is interlaced with rich symbolism."                                      

                                                                                                                 -Jane Kenoyer, Hi-Fructose Magazine, 2013

"Intent on not date stamping her work, Caimi skillfully combines her inspirations from epochs within classical art with 21st century influences, creating a timelessness in her images and also the implication that her thoughts and concerns are not limited to herself, nor to this era, but extend to past generations, through to our own and beyond."

                                                                                                                        -Wow x Wow