Cultivating Fragments
Barbara Smith Gioia
September 3 - 26, 2021
Artist reception: Friday, September 3, 6-8
Not So Perfect, 2021, 40x40”, mixed media and acrylic
Something About Violet, 2021, 40x40”, mixed media and acrylic
Buster Levi Gallery is pleased to announce Cultivating Fragments, an exhibition of new mixed media paintings by Barbara Smith Gioia. It is a body of recent works that reflect her continued interest in exploring process and materials. Ultimately the works show how this artist follows and embraces the different processes that shape and inform each piece. While the conventions of painting are in clear evidence via light, color, and surface texture; the quality and nature of the collage work is an additional reminder that the artist’s hand is always present.
The process begins with drawing a line, and then another, and another… without a “specific goal in mind.” For Smith Gioia, drawing is meditation in motion and embraces a spontaneity that allows unexpected things to happen. This is the first step in making her mixed media paintings; the place where drawing, printmaking, collage and painting intersect. The drawings are meanderings that reflect her thoughts and emotions at that moment in time. From the resulting images, fragments are culled and given a new identity through a variety of printmaking mediums that can include silkscreen, linoleum prints, and woodcuts. The printed papers are the collage materials and form the vocabulary for each painting, opening the way for transformation, potential, and possibility within each work. Smith Gioia regards each painting as a journey of sorts where color, line, and form experience multiple iterations that engage in banter and a bit of jostling before settling into a state of rightness. The forward mobility that results from this process keeps her consistently engaged. She has been working in this mode of combining media for over 10 years.
Her work draws on many influences including textile design, patchwork quilts, Modern concepts and concerns of Allover painting and Minimalist Expressionism. She is an admirer of Paul Klee, whose approach to drawing and printmaking aligns with her sensibilities, as it was he who coined the expression “to draw without a goal.” In her words: “Reaching back into history and carrying concepts and methods forward in our work is part of the process of generating and cultivating new ideas.”
Barbara Smith Gioia lives and works in the Hudson Valley with her husband. She works out of her studio at Atlas Industries in Newburgh, NY. She earned a MFA from Hunter College and exhibits throughout the New York Metropolitan region, most recently a solo exhibition at Rockland Center for the Arts in West Nyack, NY and currently in a group show at Art Spaces@Krasdale, White Plains, NY, on exhibit until October 27. Other venues include: SITE: Brooklyn, Brooklyn, NY; Woodstock Artist Association and Museum in Woodstock, NY; Holland Tunnel Gallery, Newburgh; University of Wisconsin,WI; and Ann Street Gallery, Newburgh, NY. Her works are in dozens of private collections.
Buster Levi Gallery is located at 121 Main Street, Cold Spring, N.Y., walking distance from the Metro North train
station. Gallery Hours are Saturday and Sunday, 12-5pm and by appointment.