Wine Label Collection- Abstract

The “Wine Labels Collection” explores the idea of deep transformation without eluding from its basic elements. Rafaela Costa started this body of work in 2019, a few months after she moved to the United States to live in the wine country. This collection embodies and illustrates the artist’s personal journey and her own period of transformation. By using wine labels as a medium, the artist not only brings awareness to the idea of repurposing materials and the importance of recycling, but she also incorporates a new element of her daily life into her work. On the subjective realm she aims to explore the metaphorical symbolism of labels. For the artist, labels are normally used as descriptions, they give meaning and at the same time define and restrain the idea of something (or someone). By deconstructing a label and seeing it as its basic elements, which in this case, are patterns of ink on paper. The artist uses its parts to create new images that have a new identity, meaning and purpose. The old label transcends its forms, nonetheless, it never departs from its basic elements. The Gestalt concept comes into play, and the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.