Margherita Manzelli “L’ape e la rosa”
Kimmerich
This event has ended.
Kimmerich gallery presents “L’ape e la rosa” (The Bee and the Rose), Ravenna-based painter Margherita Manzelli’s first solo exhibition in New York. Manzelli’s acclaimed oeuvre consists primarily of large-scale paintings and delicate works on paper that depict eerie yet remarkably compelling images of women isolated within abstract dreamscapes.
In this exhibition of Manzelli’s work, her most recent paintings are displayed. Utilizing oil painting techniques that she has championed since the mid-90s, Manzelli renders alluring depictions of lone figures one gossamer layer at a time. Each possesses wide eyes, a frail frame and a disproportionate head surrounded by fields of densely saturated color. In “La Materia Deve Essere Ovunque” (2011), a manganese blue unravels beneath a dark forest for a figure to lie upon, while in “Unità di Pressione - Le Tenebre” (2011) a soft white blankets the ground where a figure stands.
Arabesque patterns that rise on either side of “Unità di Pressione - Le Tenebre” (2011) refer to the artistic motif found in Islamic Art. These geometric forms traditionally mimic patterns found in plants and animals, continuing Manzelli’s reference throughout her work to the shapes and forms of flora and fauna, especially flowers and butterflies. The henna markings covering a young woman’s face in “La Vita É Nulla” (2011) as well as the gentleman’s feet in “Un Giorno Sulla Terra” (2011) subtly refer to religious rituals, initiation into culture and even to the flowering plant from which the dye is derived. But what religious ritual is taking place is unclear and what culture these figures may or may not be a part of is unknown.
Despite their fragility, they do not give off the appearance of naivety. Their calm expression and sly smile acknowledge an awareness of being watched while watching. The figures serve as invitations into an erotic experience of gratuitous gazing—a perpetual act of suggestion. Even the lone male figure found in “Un Giorno Sulla Terra” (2011), with eyes closed still reveals his mid-slumber apprehension by a tilt of his head toward the viewer, that one might gain a better view.
Time and space are irrelevant to Manzelli’s figures. They are nameless, placeless and indistinct. They have not been painted from life, or from photograph. Instead they are painted entirely from Manzelli’s imagination. They are phantoms of the artist’s own conscious and unconscious anxieties. And the abyss that they emerge from only accentuate that they themselves are voids of immense desires.
Media
Schedule
from March 04, 2011 to April 30, 2011