FALL 2018

Giulio Turcato and Spring

Urpflanze

Giulio Turcato, Metamorfosi. Litograph, 62 x 75 cm, 1972.
Spring, Urpflanze. Mixed media, size variable, 2018.

This exhibition was born as a simultaneous reading of Giulio Turcato’s print, Metamorfosi (1972), and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s text “Metamorphosis of Plants” (1790). 

In this treaty, Goethe examines a series of traits common to various plants’ characters, in an attempt to find unity in formal dynamism: ordo ab chao. He concludes with a hypothesis about the existence of a prehistorical, archetypal plant — the Urpflanze —from which all plants would derive. 

Spring has materialized Goethe’s originary Urpflanze (2018), an imaginary fossil of the archetypal plant. The poet died in 1832 without proof to validate his theory. This artwork is a gift to Goethe and an homage to his visionary idea of ​​genesis and genetics, a forerunner of Darwin’s theory of evolution. The fossil takes its cue from one of the greatest botanical illustrators, Pierre-Jean-François Turpin, who, like Spring, was deeply impressed by Goethe's precocious speculations. 

In Turcato’s print, recurrent themes from Goethe’s “Theory of Colors” (1810) are also evident; indeed, Goethe theorized that all colors originate from a metamorphosis of blue, red, and yellow: the three archetypal colors. In Turcato’s piece, this metamorphosis is enacted through the painter’s characteristic marks, revealing an organic quality of tone. 

Both works suggest an alternative understanding of metamorphosis: Turcato’s print reads as a consequence, or conclusion, of the transformational process; Spring’s fossil harkens back to a common, lost origin. 
Turcato’s Metamorfosi and Spring’s Urpflanze merge modern art and botanical philosophy in a demonstration of the ever-changing force of artistic inquiry. Both artists offer a personal interpretation of the concept of metamorphosis by making visible its fundamental duality: how it evolves, how it ceases to be. Physical proximity is the a priori requirement for the works to communicate with each other and with their viewers. Their vicinity enables the works to converse, and invites the viewer to become an active participant in that conversation. When the three are brought together, the concept of the exhibition comes to life, generating an unexpected synthesis. 
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The works are presented in a space shared by a research community that will glean answers, or perhaps more-so, questions, from this artistic metamorphosis. Like Goethe’s archetypal plant, the library is the primordial place for intellects to evolve and flourish.

Giulio Turcato (b. 1912, Mantua; d. 1995, Rome) worked in a variety of media, both figuratively and abstractly. After attending the Venice Academy’s school of Life Drawing in the early 1930s, he joined the Communist party and moved to Rome to work underground for the Resistenza. His unique style and choice of media reveal his interest in the work of diverse European masters and, above all, his creativity and his attention to looking. From 1942 onwards, he exhibited at the Venice Biennale and, in 1959, at Documenta II. Turcato was active in several artistic groups, among which: Forma 1 in 1947, alongside Ugo Attardi, Pietro Consagra, Piero Dorazio, Mino Guerrini, Achille Perilli, Antonio Sanfilippo; Fronte Nuovo delle Arti, in 1948; and Continuità in 1961.

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Spring is an artists’ collective founded in Rome in 2017. It bases its research on the study and interaction of the work of art with the plant kingdom. Spring’s past shows include, most notably: HO HO HO, a group exhibition held at Frutta Gallery (25 November 2017 - 24 February 2018).

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SPRING 2018

Geraldine Hope Ghelli

​and Catherine Parsonage

Untitled + Campari Spring

Geraldine Hope Ghelli, Untitled. Digital Photograph, 45 x 45 cm.
Geraldine Hope Ghelli, Untitled. Digital Photograph, 45 x 45 cm.
Geraldine Hope Ghelli, Untitled. Digital Photograph, 45 x 45 cm.
Catherine Parsonage, Campari Spring. Coloured pencil, pastel, watercolour on Fabriano paper in perspex frame, 111 x 66 cm, 2017.

Geraldine Hope Ghelli is an American-Italian freelance documentary photographer currently based in Rome, Italy. Since graduating from John Cabot University in 2015, her work has been featured in international publications including, The New Yorker, Süddeutsche Zeitung, The Washington Post, Bloomberg, Teen Vogue, and La Vanguardia.

Ghelli brings a humanist approach to her work documenting and attempting to understand the recent wave of independence movements and their geo-political, economic, and human rights repercussions. Featured in The New Yorker (July 16, 2017) Ghelli’s work was described as consciously subverting the form of the portrait by letting her camera become a roving, kaleidoscopic eye, taking in all the shades of life. ​

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Catherine Parsonage was born in 1989 on the Wirral, England and now lives and works between Rome and London.  She is an MA graduate from the Royal College of Art and was the Sainsbury Scholar in Painting & Sculpture at the British School at Rome 2016-7. Parsonage’s practice incorporates painting, sculpture, performance and poetry and has been exhibited internationally in London, Berlin, Turin, Milan and Rome.

Catherine Parsonage’s practice combines personal experience with a wide range of literary references including fiction, mythology & poetry; the resulting work explores emotional and identity-based states, caught on the boundary between the imagined and the real. Campari Spring was first exhibited by the curatorial collective Garbo’s in Full for it: Tomaso de Luca & Catherine Parsonage, Rome.  The drawing imagines the body in a state of liquid flux and touches upon the hazy aesthetics of pleasure and reverie.

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FALL 2017

William Pettit

The Omniverse Dilemma

Untitled Homemade iris pigment on pig intestine, mounted on paper, 30 x 40 cm, 2017
Enso Dragonsblood and saffron on pig intestine, mounted on paper, 30 x 40 cm, 2016
Untitled from Periodic Tables Cochineal and dragonsblood on Arches paper, 30 x 40 cm, 2016
Untitled Suminagashi, Chinese ink on rice paper, 30 x 40 cm, 2017
Untitled from Cosmic Bodies, Homemade iron gall ink on Arches paper, 20 x 26 cm, 2016
Untitled Homemade iron gall ink, olive oil and gold on paper, 20 x 26 cm, 2016

​The pieces come from the union of two artistic intentions. One concerns research in local and homemade materials, traditional ingredients and pigments related to the history of both cooking and painting. They present a sample of locally sourced colors (saffron, cochineal, iris, oak gall, and pomegranate inks) and supports made by the artist, based on medieval and Renaissance artists’ manuals. The other is an exploration of physical and scientific structures and how they influence accumulation and flow, and the gesture and the hand of the artist. There is a balance between structure and chance that reflects both cosmic and cellular formations. The union of these two intentions form a biology of painting, where the infinitesimal qualities of animal and vegetable chemistry reflect the elements of a macro and micro cosmic genesis, order, and entropy. Here, material is the protagonist, rather than the artist.

​William Pettit is an artist and poet who works as a professor of Studio Art at both John Cabot University and at the Umbra Institute in Perugia, Italy. He has been exhibiting his works in Philadelphia, Paris, and Rome since 1996 and he has been publishing poetry since 1992; he also works as a sculptor, musician, photographer and video artist. Beyond this he is founder and director of The Bottega which offers workshops in different media, and of the Fiorentini Art Studio Gallery of the John Cabot University Studio Arts program.

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SPRING 2016

Jochem Schoneveld

The Diver

The Diver Photograph, 60×75 cm, 2011-2016

The Diver is part of a series of pictures and oils on canvas called Memory and Etruscan Landscape. The pictures aim to reproduce the “Etruscan atmosphere” of the site where they were taken and to have the viewer imagine the place with all their senses, letting the viewer in both the space and time of the photographs. The concept of Memory links the photographs to the oils on canvas representing the name of the Etruscan sites in binary language, also connected to memory across time. In the digital age technology is our main archiving support, whereas in the past peoples wrote words to transmit knowledge. Binary language becomes similar to the Etruscan language: intrinsic to both are pieces of information, but neither of them is understandable to us, thus highlighting the fragility of memory.

Jochem Schoneveld, born in Holland in 1973, is a photographer and lecturer of photography based in Rome whose work is characterized by a focus on the human-altered landscape. His work has been published in international journals and exhibited at fotofestivals and galleries in Italy and Holland.

Rome Lost and Found is a work that retraces the footsteps of Dutch artists in the 16th and 17th century Rome. The artist looks back at his fellow countrymen and their drawings of Roman ruins, cityscapes, monuments and countryside, and makes his own version in his own media, photography.

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FALL 2015

Serafino Amato 

Vanguard

​Vanguard Photograph, 100×125 cm, 1996

Situated in the center of a black and white industrial background, a man in workman’s overalls, cap on backwards, bends over into an old industrial container that, from bottom to top, reads Vanguard. His head is buried in the darkness and as such, he remains anonymous. His search remains ambiguous. Is he reaching for something at the bottom? Is the container full or empty? What is he looking for? His simple, unremarkable action poses many unanswered questions. In such a setting, Vanguard must of course signify an industrial brand, but has also connotations of innovation and experimentation. After all, each student the library repeats the enigmatic action of the man in Vanguard: we come to look for knowledge and resources, digging for answers to our enigmas or for something buried deep in our thoughts.​​

Serafino Amato has been involved with the field of photography since 1989. His work first evolved out of his experience in experimental theater and has since developed to include digital photography and video art. A professor since 2008, he teaches different methods and styles of photography, including Pinhole Photography, Video Art and Digital Photography.

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FALL 2014

Peter Flaccus

Black Ellipse with Seven Events

​Black Ellipse with Seven Events Encaustic on wood, 135×99.5 cm, 2007

Seven blotches of wax arranged in an ellipsis expand and alter their status within the space of the painting. The continuously changing and dynamic quality of this elliptical system makes the circular shapes come alive as “events”: events that were set in motion in the moment of artistic creation and continue to unfold before the viewer’s eye in retaining a relation with the physical circumstances of their making. These circles evoke in their organic quality cosmic shapes and natural incidents: as it happens in nature, the artist scarcely intervenes in changing the course of the “events”, and yields to the substance of the wax the power of determining the painting’s formal organization.​

Peter Flaccus, born in Missoula, Montana, in 1947, received a MFA in Painting, at Indiana University. He is an artist and teacher. His work has been displayed in solo and group exhibitions throughout Italy, Europe and the US and has been featured in catalogues. Flaccus won numerous grants and fellowships throughout his careers and his artworks entered high standing European and American collections.

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FALL 2013

Andrew Rutt

Lei è la mia montagna

Lei è la Mia Montagna Neon, 2012

Lei è la Mia Montagna is part of a three-month project that the artist carried out in the oldest marble sculpture studio in Carrara. The relationship between the artist, the local territory and its people is substantiated in this object. Lei è la Mia Montagna is the artist’s response to the life memories that a Carrarese decided to share with him: conceived as a topographical map as much as a portrait, the neon piece describes a man’s personal history and identity as they developed in relation to the territory of Carrara. Media and colors have been specifically chosen to reproduce the experiential dimension of his memories. The neon reminds of the signage of ballrooms, and its cobalt blue evokes calm and a counteraction of chaos that unfold in the synchronization in ballroom dancing, whereas the fragility of the glass exemplifies the perilous relationship of the Carraresi with their land.​
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Andrew Rutt, based in Rome since 2000, studied Fine Art and Critical Theory at Central St. Martins and Goldsmiths College in London. His work, that incorporates videos, sculptures, photographs and installations, has been exhibited in solo and group show at Galleries in both London and Rome. Recent shows have seen a shift in direction in his work which has placed greater emphasis on a collaborative, relational aesthetic; involving individuals and groups of non-art professionals in the creation of his projects.

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