Paintings by Christina Troufa

Via a write-up at Illusion, I bring you a link to the acrylic and mixed-media paintings of Portuguese painter Christina Troufa, whose work consists of lovely realistic and painterly images of women cutting into zones of her unfinished linen background. She describes them as telling the "wisdom of sayings, the conversations I heard as a child among women, the folklore, stories of my life and my family."

Given the technique, which I like, I wonder if she primes the linen at all before painting? Not priming is a technique that has a sort of modern vogue; it was really perfected by Helen Frankenthaler who painted in oils thinned with lots of turpentine so they would soak into the  canvas. the result, in layers, produced luminous, watercolor like colors. (She called it, unsurprisingly, "soak stain.")  Troufa paints mostly in acrylics, and actually her work looks similar to pastel. So I am left wondering about technique ...