Press Releases

Current Exhibition

Sara Jessie Kane | Sharon Thomas | Edwina Ashton

14 August – 19 September 2010
via Roma 22, Cortona

ENGLISH

The works of Sharon Thomas, Sara Jessie Kane and Edwina Ashton presented in this exhibition explore ambiguous territories balanced between the mundane and the obsessions of ritual.

Sharon Thomas’s Coffee Morning Series take us on a disconcerting journey through the artist’s Fairy Hill landscapes in which a young girl – perhaps a metaphor for the artist herself – is both witness, spectator and occasionally participant, in a sequence of obsessively played out, male dominated rituals.

By contrast the abstract forms of Sara Jessie Kane’s paintings present us with fractured scenarios of a psychological intensity that border on representation. By simultaneously hiding and revealing her subject, the ambiguity of our role as viewers is magnified, to create a precarious condition of uncertainty.

In the video works of Edwina Ashton we are confronted by figures dressed in grotesque costumes reminiscent of animals and insects, at once friendly and frightening: their actions reveal the obsessive rituals of mundane existence, at first comic, giving way to the tragic as the repetition is perpetuated.

With entirely divergent means each artist leads us into conflicted territories in which gender, status and identity are tested and pushed to breaking point. The results, whether frightening or fascinating, demandingly serious or absurdly humorous, disclose surprisingly informative means of perceiving the realities by which we are constantly buffered.

ITALIANO

I lavori di Sharon Thomas, Sara Jessie Kane e Edwina Ashton presentati in questa mostra esaminano territori ambigui in bilico tra l’ordinario e le ossessioni rituali del giornaliero.

Nella Coffee Morning Series di Sharon Thomas veniamo trasportati nel sconcertante paesaggio fantastico dell’artista: Fairy Hill. Qui una bambina protagonista – forse una metafora per l’artista stessa – è sia testimone e spettatrice, che partecipante ad una sequenza di bizzarri rituali dominati da uomini.

A contrasto, le forme astratte dei dipinti di Sara Jessie Kane ci presentano con scenari fratturati d’intensità psicologica, confinanti sulla rappresentazione. Simultaneamente rivelando e nascondendo il suo soggetto, l’ambiguità della nostra posizione di spettatore viene amplificata per creare una precaria condizione d’incertezza.

Nei lavori su video di Edwina Ashton ci troviamo di fronte ad una sequenza di figure vestite di grotteschi costumi ricordanti le forme di animali ed insetti, al contempo simpatici e spaventosi: le loro azioni rivelano gl’ossessivi rituali della ordinaria esistenza giornaliera; essi sono da prima comici, cedendo poi al tragico con la perpetuazione della ripetizione.

Con mezzi assolutamente divergenti ciascuno degli artisti ci trasporta in confittati territori, in cui le nostre idee d’identità, di genere e di gerarchia vengono provate e spinte al limite. I risultati, se terrificanti o affascinanti, di serietà impegnativa o assurdamente arguti, schiudano un’ informativa gamma di modi di percepire le realtà che costantemente ci circondano.

Past Exhibitions

Giacinto Occhionero | Jennifer Graber | Phyllis Baldino

Dissennato Paesaggio

19 June – 1st August 2010
via Roma 22, Cortona

English

The work of the artists presented in this exhibition, are united by two intentions: the will to appropriate and reinterpret works by major artists of the past and the choice to engage with and question received ideas about our natural environment. Stylistically divergent, each of the three artists in the show lead us towards different areas of perception. By appealing to art works of the past, each artist casts his or her work in an historic present whereby their contemporary vision is juxtaposed with that of their predecessors’ intentions. Through the works presented here we are invited to look at the past and the contemporary present simultaneously. In doing so we recognise how each artist critiques received ideas to generate new modes of reception that are philosophically provocative.

Phyllis Baldino lives and works in New York. She is currently in the exhibition Do/Redo/Undo at Wiels, in Brussels (05.08-06.06.2010). Baldino is included in the section that features ‘45 Years of Performance Video from EAI’ which was also at PS1 in New York (01.11.2009-26.04.2010).

Jennifer Graber lives and works in Boston, she has recently been in the group show From the Sublime to the Ridiculous organised by TFA, Athens (15.11.09-02.12.2009)

Giacinto Occhionero lives and works in Rome. He has recently had the solo exhibition Nafta & Dafne at Studio d’Arte Pino Casagrande, Rome (12.2009-02.2010)

Italiano

l lavori degli artisti presentati in mostra sono uniti da due intenzioni: la voglia di appropriare e confrontarsi con opere di alcuni dei maggiori artisti del passato e la scelta di impegnarsi con, e di interrogare idee accettate riguardanti il nostro ambiente. Stilisticamente diversi, ciascuno degli artisti in mostra ci porta verso differenti zone di percezione. Mediante l’appello ad opere d’arte del passato, ogni artista propone il proprio lavoro in un presente storico nella quale la loro visione contemporanea entra in paragone con le intenzioni dei loro predecessori. Tramite i lavori presentati siamo quindi invitati a vedere il passato ed il presente contemporaneo simultaneamente. Così facendo, riconosciamo come ciascun artista commenta idee accettate per generare nuove forme di comprensione filosoficamente provocative.

Phyllis Baldino vive e lavora a New York, è attualmente nella mostra Do / Redo / Undo a Wiels, Brussels (08.05 – 06.06. 2010). Baldino è inclusa nella sezione ‘45 Years of Performance Video from EAI’ che è stata presentata a PS1 New York (01.11.2009 – 26.04.2010).

Jennifer Graber vive e lavora a Boston, è recentemente stata nella mostra collettiva From the Sublime to the Ridiculous a cura di TFA, Atene (15.11.09-02.12.2009)

Giacinto Occhionero vive e lavora a Roma. Recentemente ha avuto la mostra personale Nafta & Dafne a Studio d’Arte Pino Casagrande, Roma (12.2009-02.2010)

From the Sublime to the Ridiculous

15th November – 2nd December 2009

Opening Sunday 15th November 3:00 – 6:00 pm
Mnisikleous 18 & Diogenous Steet, Plaka, Athens

Produced by: Teverina Fine Art, Cortona, Italy

Edwina Ashton (UK) Phyllis Baldino (USA) Anne Sofie Bird Møller (Denmark) Paul Desborough (UK) Jennifer Graber (USA) Scott Grodesky (USA) Sara Kane (USA) DeAnna Maganias (Greece) Kirsi Mikkola (Finland) Giacinto Occhionero (Italy) Luca Padroni (Italy) Maria Papadimitriou (Greece) Sharon Thomas (UK) Nicola Tyson (UK)

This first exhibition organized by Teverina Fine Art will be held in the mid-nineteenth century neo-classical home of Angela Lyras located in the Plaka district of Athens. Lyras was co-founder along with Nicola Tyson of the acclaimed experimental gallery, “Trial Balloon” – an initiative in the early 1990’s New York City art scene that promoted emerging women artists. The exhibition is curated by Francesco Nevola, director of TFA and most recently author of books on the eighteenth century etcher-architect Giovanni Battista Piranesi and on contemporary painter Sharon Thomas.

Teverina Fine Art is a gallery/ project space located in Cortona, Italy opening in spring 2010. It is an artist-curator run project with a studio space for in house art production in the Umbro-Cortonese mountains of Tuscany. The founders of the project space are Francesco Nevola and DeAnna Maganias.

TFA proposes the work of fourteen artists from six countries. Despite restrictions of distance, several of these artists know each other well and their network of connections reflect the increasingly international nature of our culture. Their work embraces styles ranging from abstraction to figuration, and uses media from film, collage, painting to sculpture.

‘From the sublime to the ridiculous… there is but one step.’ This now famous phrase, was adapted from the words of the Englishman Thomas Paine, one of the founding fathers of the Unites States, who observed in his book, The Age of Reason (1793) that: ‘The sublime and the ridiculous are often so nearly related, that it is difficult to class them separately’.

Certain related themes emerge from the collection of works in the exhibition: the nature of repetition that punctuates everyday activity; the ways we relate to our built and natural environments and the role of media imagery representing a ‘virtual’ world. Other works focus on issues of pure abstraction – investigations into the potential of form and colour as an expansive generative force. Furthermore, the absurd nature of what is considered serious, or conversely, the serious nature of what may be thought absurd, could be recognised as significant means by which these artists explore the experience of everyday reality.

18 Mnisikleous & Diogenous Street, Plaka, Athens
Wednesday – Sunday, 11.00 am – 5.00 pm or by appointment / Tel: +30 210 3254276
+30 693 946 3842
www.teverinafineart.com