First Irish solo exhibition for Tyrrellspass-based Italian artist
Running at the Atrium space in Westmeath County Buildings up to Friday week, September 20, is an exhibition of works by Italian artist Stefania Oggioni, who has for the last 11 years made Tyrrellspass her home.
The exhibition, Meitheal, which opened on September 2, sees Stefania return to public exhibition following the success of her first participation on the Irish public art scene last year, when her work ‘Steps – A Hummingbird’s Story’ was selected for the art call ‘Climate and Health’ by the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland in collaboration with RHA.
Stefania is a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts of Brera in Milan, where she was introduced to a variety of media, contemporary and historic.
In that vibrant art laboratory, she cultivated her passion for technical know-how, and chemistry applied to art: materials are important to her as a conscious part of her artistic expression.
It was in search of the right materials that she delved into the complicated world of eco-printing and botanical dyeing, which she has incorporated in her practice.
According to Stefania, there is something deeply satisfying and alchemical about pounding your own pigments from discarded pastels and binding them in formulas derived by the old masters; or extracting colour from bubbling cauldrons of plant matter.
This fragile dance of chemical interactions is a fit way to capture the interaction of land and water, rain and sunlight, life and decay that weave the network of ecosystems in the midlands, and particularly its endangered bogs and vulnerable waterways; their disappearance, their moods, the myths they evoked, the history they witnessed.
The name of this exhibition is chosen for this reason – it is a meitheal: a coming together of neighbours to work with one another and for each other, to achieve a common purpose.
The peculiar nature of this series of works is its mutability. Stefania uses chemistry to her best advantage, discarding overlapping layers that are counter to good practices, but creating pieces that can and will evolve with the passing of time.
The interaction of their components and the environment they are displayed in will dictate what changes take place. There is an element of liberation and even faith in relinquishing all control on one’s art.
The artist must trust in the process to result in the pieces that she wished for; and then must trust in the evolution of these pieces after they have left their hands.