Boston, Mass. – The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston has commissioned New York-based painter Francesca DiMattio to create the fourth installation of the Sandra and Gerald Fineberg Art Wall.
The Art Wall is dedicated to site-specific works by leading contemporary artists. DiMattio was inspired by the ICA’s striking building and location on Boston Harbor to create Banquet—a new, multi-panel painting of monumental scale. Located inside the museum’s glass-enclosed lobby, Banquet explores how the ICA’s architecture blurs our concept of interior and exterior space. Unfolding across five canvases, Banquet offers a fantastical take on a waterfront scene: the sails of a tall ship intertwine with birds emerging from tiled walls and archways leading out to a stormy sea. On view from July 3, 2010 to Aug. 14, 2011, Sandra and Gerald Fineberg Art Wall: Francesca DiMattio is the artist’s first solo museum presentation.
“Francesca DiMattio is part of an exciting generation of artists who are taking painting in new directions,” says Jill Medvedow, Director of the Institute of Contemporary Art. “DiMattio’s use of perspective, scale and architectural imagery creates an exhilarating visual energy—a wonderful fit for the Sandra and Gerald Fineberg Art Wall, where visitors begin their experience at the ICA.”
DiMattio populates her paintings with an eclectic mix of geometric tiled floors, delicate lace, utilitarian ladders, and dramatic architectural elements. This disparate imagery is often woven together by underlying grid patterns, lending a sense of logic to her seemingly chaotic canvases. In her paintings, elements collide into each other, become entangled, and co-exist—complicating our understanding of perspective and space. Her work seems to exist somewhere in between the abstract and the figurative, the beautiful and the grotesque, between the processes of creation and destruction. DiMattio describes her working practice as “getting into trouble and getting out of it.”
“DiMattio’s source material ranges from high-end fashion and design magazines to images pulled from art history books, to pieces of furniture in her studio,” says ICA Curatorial Associate Bridget Hanson. “She combines, fragments, and deconstructs these objects into what could be considered a surreal, imaginary still-life. Painted mostly in black and white, DiMattio’s new work, Banquet, reveals glimpses of blue ocean and the Boston skyline through a fantasy tableau of chairs, tables, flower vases, and boat masts.”
Artist bio
Francesca DiMattio was born in New York City in 1981, where she continues to live and work. She received her BFA from Cooper Union in 2003 and her MFA from Columbia University in 2005. Her paintings have been featured in group exhibitions including PortugalArte10, Lisbon, Portugal (2010); Francesca DiMattio and Garth Weiser, The Suburban, Oak Park, Illinois (2010); The 185th Annual: An Invitational Exhibition of Contemporary American ArtSandra and Gerald Fineberg Art Wall: Francesca DiMattio is the artist’s first solo museum presentation. , National Academy, New York City (2010); 7:10, The National Arts Club, New York (2010); Abstract America, The Saatchi Gallery, London (2009); Master of Reality, Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts (2009); and Size Matters: XXL, Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art, Peekskill, New York (2007). Solo exhibitions include Conduits Gallery, Milan (2010); Decollage, Locust Projects, Miami (2009); Unhinged , LAXART, Los Angeles (2007); and Salon 94 in New York City (2006 and 2009).
About the ICA
An influential forum for multi-disciplinary arts, the Institute of Contemporary Art has been at the leading edge of art in Boston for more than 70 years. Like its iconic building on Boston’s waterfront, the ICA offers new ways of engaging with the world around us. Its exhibitions and programs provide access to contemporary art, artists, and the creative process, inviting audiences of all ages and backgrounds to participate in the excitement of new art and ideas. The ICA, located at 100 Northern Avenue, is open Tuesday and Wednesday, 10 am – 5 pm; Thursday and Friday, 10 am – 9 pm; and Saturday and Sunday, 10 am – 5 pm. Admission is $15 adults, $13 seniors and $10 students, and free for members and children 17 and under. ICA Free Admission for Youth is sponsored by State Street Foundation. Free admission on Target Free Thursday Nights, 5 – 9 pm. Free admission for families at ICA Play Dates (2 adults + children 12 and under) on the last Saturday of the month. For more information, call 617-478-3100
Image: Francesca DiMattio, Greenhouse, 2010, Courtesy of the artist and Salon 94, New York.
www.icaboston.org