What would you say your creative process is like?

“I would compare it with planting or removing the weeds and allowing the flowers space to grow. Maybe I could even say that planting stuff and growing trees and flowers is like using the earth to create a big live lasting collage. I do see gardens like this. Although I grew up in the countryside, I didn’t see things this way until more recently where my shifting space and my fluctuating moods opened my appreciation. Back then in the countryside it was all about hard-work, which was frustrating as a child.”

It can be hard to surmise what a photo portrays as fixed and immutable. And yet the surrounding elements to every scene are as important as the scene itself. What we prune, cut, and make space for defines what takes root there as well as what blossoms. I met Gabriela at a coffee shop beneath a great Church dome on a sunny February afternoon, and there, coffees in hand, we sat to discussing the nature of creativity and its best friend; spontaneity.

We had first come in contact with Gabriela on the ‘I Love,’ Mvintage Jewellery campaign in 2019. Her subtle flare left a curious impression and her effortless talent was clear, and so if you sometimes find yourself wondering if there’s more to something; the answer is, there is. One talent normally stems from others and at the heart of how we work is a desire to understand the potential behind each person.

It turned out Gabriela is a visual artist herself; collages are her main form of expression and recreation. So it seems now the perfect coincidence, that after our coffees we spontaneously wandered through town till we found a little brown and green hill that snaked out of the main-street and down into a valley. We followed it through till we were enclosed in a green gap in the land, and there, between the beams of light flowing through the trees, among the chameleons dropping eaves, Gabriela’s metaphor took hold. To her, art is not beginning with nothing, but rather starting with too much, like nature herself. We are to see, look, feel, understand, she says, to know what will flourish, what will create harmony. She shows that art is not knowing what to add, but rather knowing what to take away; how to give space for the most subtle of details to shine as strongly as even the most grand of plants or artistic gestures.

Written by Anthony Mizzi.