| | Published October 9th, 2024
| SMC Museum of Art features two new exhibits
| | | By Vera Kochan |  | | "Ritorno:? Antico, sono ubriacato dalla voce"? Cianne Fragione? 2007-2022 Photo Vera Kochan |
Saint Mary's College has just opened two new art installations this fall. "Isole: A Voyage Among My Dreams" featuring artist Cianne Fragione, and "Visceral Processes" featuring works by Jay DeFeo, Frank Lobdell, and Manuel Neri.
According to SMC Museum of Art, "Influenced by her Italian heritage, Fragione (b.1952, United States) draws on personal and cultural experience during her creative process. Over five decades, she has developed work that crosses boundaries between abstract painting and sculpture, navigating a wide range of artistic mediums."
Fragione's "Isole" exhibit features a combination of 33 paintings, drawings, and assemblages in conversation with a collection of poems, "Ossi di Seppia" (Cuttlefish Bones) by Eugenio Montale. She uses oil paint and mixed-media materials, such as found objects and textiles, to create her pieces. Much of her art is based on memories, traditions, and histories involving her heritage. Before earning her Master of Fine Arts degree, Fragione was a dancer, and that background has an influence in her artistic expressions.
The word "Isole" means "Island" in Italian, and as such Fragione's pieces in this exhibit emulate images of the land, sky, and sea. Many of the works on display also use repurposed materials, such as shoes, lace, and journal pages (often personal items of her own).
"Her work always stresses the human condition," explained SMC Museum of Art Curator Britt Royer. "She also creates things in bundles. It's both concealing and revealing. All of her work is grounded in poetry, and there`s a roughness and a rawness to her pieces."
One work on display, "Sacred Cheese: I limoni / A Song of Solidarity", is based on folklore that explains why a certain goat cheese took on a flavorful new taste after Sardinia sheep were herded to Tuscany and began grazing on wild fennel clover and pastures full of absinthe, thereby creating a new and delicate taste profile.
Fragione's mentors are featured in SMC's second art exhibit. "Visceral Processes" features a combination of 32 drawings, collages, works on paper, and paintings by Bay Area artists DeFeo (1929-1989), Lobdell (1921-2013), and Neri (1930-2021).
? "Known for their countercultural aesthetics merging in the 1950s, these artists examined discarded and ordinary objects as underlying metaphors for the human condition," Royer explained. "Created during the post-World War II boom, this collection incorporates elements of Abstract Expressionism, Bay Area Figural, and Funk, highlighting the fluid boundaries between art movements. These artists worked with students throughout their art practice; this provided a fertile ground for ideas to expand to their students."
When referring to both exhibits on display Royer stated, "It is important for us to enable these two different stories to exist in their own space and yet provide a lens to see how they are related."
"Isole: A Voyage Among My Dreams" is on view through June 22, 2025. "Visceral Processes" is on view through Dec. 15, 2024. |
 | | "Untitled (Florence)"? Jay DeFeo? 1952 Photo Vera Kochan |  | | "March 1954-111"? Frank Lobdell? 1954 Photo Vera Kochan | | | | | | | | | |
Lamorinda Weekly, Moraga CA