Francesca DiMattio at Salon 94 Gallery
Venus II, 2018
Glaze on porcelain and stoneware, steel, resin and acrylic paint
I took Penelope into the city to see Francesca Dimattio's BOUCHEROUITE back in the Spring and we can't stop thinking about it. Aside from the unbridled human crush we have on her, photos of her work lured me in with this impossible mix of childlike wonder and high-brow elegance and tradition in her medium of porcelain and hand-formed florals. Included in the exhibition are three delightfully curious, towering ceramic sculptures: cartoonish totems bedecked in ornamental garnish. DiMattio fractures and reconfigures a wide array of references; she borrows from art history, children’s books, animations, pop culture, and craft. It feels like you are looking back in time and far forward at once...partly strange and age-old rarity, and part futuristic, other-worldly. Though elements seem ready-made, she sculpts and paints everything by hand. "Throughout each assemblage, DiMattio’s layering and fragmentation maps a crucial dialogue between cultures and styles, pointing to the plasticity of representation. Through shifts in scale, elements that are typically accents become primary. Things do not behave as expected. Tiny figurines appear over scaled, floral motifs become viral, and torsos morph from flora and fauna. " (Salon 94)
HOLY SH*T!
The weirdly-wondrous world of Francesca DiMattio...
Here at Painted Sidewalks, we've been collecting ideas and images about thoughts on NEO-DOMESTICITY and MA-DIOCRITY as we try to place ourselves somewhere in-between creative, curious observers and the typical, tiring mom-blogs that consumed the digital motherhood space. We continue to explore this low-fi/hi-vibes duality and let's just say that our socks were knocked off when we heard Francesca created the hand-loomed scrappy-like texture of the Berber tribe rugs in her sculptures by pushing clay through a garlic press! WHAT?!! This is the ULTIMATE ! The low fi/hi-vibes, neo-domesticity zeal.
