The Calming Art of Fabiana Walsh

By Kathi Caldwell-Hopper

Travel expands a person’s outlook. The experience of visiting new places and seeing landscapes and colors and scenes broadens the scope of the imagination.

For Ossipee, New Hampshire artist, Fabiana Walsh, a lifetime of travel and experiencing different cultures has added spice to her life. Indeed, it has influenced her artwork and you can see it in the beautiful paintings and the colors she uses to capture a variety of images.

A native of Argentina, Fabiana’s parents are Italian and Spanish. Her website (fabianawalshfineart.com) relates, “Originally, Fabiana is from Buenos Aires, but when visiting New England more than 29 years ago, she fell in love with the mountains, so she settled her heart in New Hampshire. In her New Hampshire studio, she also enjoys stones, wood, metal, and pottery painting. Fabiana is a Public Notary, a BS in Justice Studies, and has a certification in Art Curating, and she is currently studying at New England College for her MFA in visual Arts.”

Fabiana says her husband is a restorer of historic barns and a timber-frame builder, and their home and her studio in Ossipee is in a converted 1790 barn. According to Fabiana, her studio used to be a horse stall; the structure was once a carriage coach stop where the horses were watered and fed. 

Perhaps it is the beauty of the old barn that attracted visitors, but people stopped by now and then and asked to see Fabiana’s artwork (she also has extensive, beautiful gardens in the summer). She explains how the studio/barn space came to be a place where the public could stop by to view and purchase her artwork. “After my husband built my studio, I was doing artwork more and more and eventually I found myself doing art full time. I never originally intended the studio to be open as a store, but the first year I was painting in the space, I would open the door to get fresh air. People saw the door was open and started to stop by. We also have large gardens and people would stop to take photos of the flowers. One thing led to another, and before I knew it, we had people from all over the world – France and England for example -  visiting the studio.”

That word-of-mouth awareness and people stopping to see her work expanded Fabiana’s horizons in a big way. “All of a sudden, library directors, managers of inns and hotels and others said my artwork was beautiful,” she recalls. “I began to get invitations to bring my art to local libraries for exhibits and also to inns and hotels in Portland, Maine and in the Conway area. It expanded from there. Someone who was a guest at a hotel saw my art and called asking to see more. That person asked if I would consider bringing some of my paintings to New York City.”

The simple act of opening her studio to let in the fresh mountain air also opened up the chance for others to see her artwork, and Fabiana’s work eventually found a much wider audience in New York City and beyond.

Perhaps it is the connection to nature that appeals to collectors of Fabiana’s artwork. “I decided to live in this rural area because of its connection to nature. I love trees and the landscape and I love to show the spirit of nature in my paintings. I believe nature has its own power of healing.”

How to describe Fabiana’s artwork? “I do paintings of all sizes, from very small to big wall murals,” she explains. “I paint a lot of flowers and my biggest inspiration comes from trees of any shape or size. There are no limitations on what I paint; I start a lot of paintings outside, depending on the weather. Then I finish them in the studio. I do a lot of ocean landscapes, trees and mountains in both acrylics and oils. I often paint things I see every day. And, I do ceramics for myself and I paint on different surfaces, such as canvas, metal, wood and pottery.”

Fabiana’s studio is a calm, peaceful place and while it is not a huge space, she asked herself what she wanted to do with all the walls she had. She decided to use some of the wall space as a gallery, and locals such as Peter Abate visited her studio and asked her to exhibit at the Gafney Library in Sanbornville, New Hampshire. She also has exhibited locally in Rochester, New Hampshire.

Beyond exhibiting locally, the artist is represented by Artblend Gallery in Florida, and Artifact Gallery in New York, New York, and her work is currently in galleries in the United States, Argentina, and Spain. Her art has also been exhibited around the world in places such as Carrousel du Paris at the Louvre; Art Paris Expo Versailles, France; Museo MIIT Turin, Italy; Art Expo New York at Pier 94; Art Basel Miami, Florida; Paradise City, Northampton, Massachusetts; Boston International Fine Art Show in Boston, Massachusetts; Van Gogh Gallery in Madrid, Spain and Messezentrum Contemporary Fine Art Show in Salzburg, Austria. She will also be taking part in the Monaco Yacht Club Show 2020, which is an exclusive event for the ultra-luxury market. It will take place from September 23 to 26, 2020 under the patronage of His Serene Highness Prince Albert II of Monaco. 

Those who would like to have the joyful experience of displaying Fabiana’s paintings for an office or at an event, can take advantage of a unique service the artist offers: you may rent her paintings for one-day events, theatre and movie sets, presentations, temporary décor, hotel lobbies and conference rooms and more.

Modest about her artistic skills and success, Fabiana says she was always doing pencil drawings as a child, but “I never thought I was good enough.” But the need to create did not go away, and years later, she is still painting and drawing and now sharing her colorful, yet calming art with others all over the world.

As a well-traveled person, one might wonder how Fabiana feels about living in a small community such as Ossipee. She laughs and says, “I love it! This is what I was looking for a long time. I have traveled a lot in the past and now I sometimes travel again for art shows and galleries (last year she went to Austria and France). I takes a lot of energy, so I find I really like to be at home in Ossipee, painting in my studio.”

Travel has definitely expanded Fabiana’s world, but she has found her permanent home, full of happiness and creativity, it rural Ossipee, where her paintings bring “calmness to the eyes, peace to the heart, and fulfillment to the soul.”

(Normally, from May to October, Calming Seasons Art Studio is open on weekends, but with COVID-19 virus restrictions, it is best to call ahead at 603-733-9594 or visit www.fabianawalshfineart.com for updates.)