Michelle Gagliano

image.png

To explore the recent works of Michelle Gagliano is to explore both the artist’s profound connection to nature and the commitment to her practice. Born in upstate New York, Gagliano often recalls the farm on which she was raised, and to which she credits her admiration of the natural world. Farm life provided an early understanding and appreciation of the ever-changing qualities of the landscape that have played the leading role in Gagliano’s art throughout her career. Gagliano’s formal art training is extensive, with various academic environments exposing the artist to a cadre of sophisticated teachers, peers, and practices.

She began her undergraduate education at the University of Texas Austin before transferring to University of Texas Denton to study with the famed painter and teacher Vernon Fisher. Gagliano then completed her Bachelor of Arts degree from Plymouth State University in Plymouth, New Hampshire, graduating summa cum laude with a major in painting and a minor in art history.

Almost two decades later, Gagliano once again turned to an academic setting to augment her practice and earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from American University in Washington, D.C. Her resume also includes completed residencies at the prestigious Chautauqua School of Art and Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. For the last ten years, Gagliano has practiced from her studio in central Virginia. Here, she remains deep in production mode.

The tangle of my surrounding landscape and its plethora of resources has always been one of my main sources of inspiration, as well as the source of the sustainable, eco-friendly materials I use. Nature provides so much to capture, examine and test. In more recent works, and in this current body of work, I have focused on the illuminating force of light in nature contrasted with the absence of light. Where there is light, there is often a shadow or darkness, and it is this dichotomy and movement that I have explored on panel. Again, I have utilized gold to convey light but this time, I have focused my attention to see how reduced and deconstructed I can reach in interpreting the landscape. Each piece is an example of the use of natural materials from shoe polish to natural earth paints and solvents, which connects the works to the concept that these materials are all part of the earth and back to the earth they will return.

Beyond her home state of Virginia, Gagliano has permeated the American art scene with solo exhibitions and curated group shows throughout Texas, Louisiana, California, and New Mexico. She has also reached an international audience through numerous exhibitions as well as gallery representation in Italy. Gagliano’s accolades are extensive, including the coveted Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Fellowship and innovative, collaborative projects with symphonic musicians and published authors. Her works continue to be curated into major private and corporate collections, both within the United States and abroad.

According to the artist, “the place I want to be most is in the studio.” Always working on several paintings at a time, Gagliano stays in the thought process, and finds herself in a constant state of inspiration. Surrounding farmland echos the farm of her childhood, with the four seasons of Virginia showcasing the transient quality of nature that drives Gagliano’s continuous experimentation and dedication to her art.

Click here to view digital catalog

Artwork

Please click on a thumbnail below to view full image.

EXPLORATIONS 2023




Patina Skies I - XII, Shoe Polish on Panel, 12” x 12” each

SURROUNDINGS


“The power of the marginalized material of shoe polish does not go unnoticed. It is difficult to find in the grocery store. It is set aside, dusty, almost forlorn, and always on the lower shelf; yet, it possesses the power to marginalize a race, to set aside and further push down with its history and role in creating the “black face”. This material has the dual nature to transpose into the ability to mock and suppress entire communities. The shoe polish by itself is innocent but once applied, becomes guilty.  My antennae were raised and outraged. The glimmer of thought conjured by my mind: to transform the material, give it another meaning and push it away from the suppressive and subversive undertones. And ultimately, take it through Purgatory, with the end result being a cleanse of its emotional volatile discourse and a change in the view of the substance. 

The process: mix it, reduce it, dilute it, disinfect it, and replace it. The black shoepolish flows into the white shoepolish. They merge, converse, dance, and ultimately, create beauty together. Adding gold, known as a transitional metal, continues the conversation to transition away from the idea of shoe polish used by oppressive minstrels, to the idea of gold as a symbol of strength and a substance for royal burials. Elevate the shoepolish away from that paradigm and shift the use of the material. Give it a different association. Remove and repurpose the material into another art form, one not based in oppression, racism, and create an art that transcends, and transposes into an entirely new conversation without the connotations. The artist is just the choreographer within the work. The unconscious subject emerges through the dance on the surface: homages to nature, life forces, the power of the gestures that hold untapped ideas. 

This body of work is about transforming materials, changing the context and allowing collisions between physical substances and gestural ideas to co-mingle together. This gives it freedom, dignity, and strength that can transcend its humble place on the shelf. Through freedom of movement, expression and light, we move beyond the memories of the original intent. All things: sunlight and summer, winter and darkness, spring and movement, autumn and reflection; a visual exploration of crescendos, diminuendos, allegros, adagios, symphony and silences, all colluding to arrange themselves artfully into a new experience, for the viewer.”

- Michelle Gagliano


Raphael’s Pigments 

“I am perpetually fascinated by art history; bowing to all those who have come before. Currently, my obsession is Raphael and his working palette and thus, creating work based on the master’s palette. I circle around pigments that he used from ultramarine, lead tin yellow, carmine, vermillion, madder lake, verdi gris, ochres, Brazilian lake, metallic gold, metallic bismuth to more colors from the earth. Exploring Renaissance colors in a way that a musician transposes music, I am choosing to rewrite with the same few notes. A collision of the past and present, directly on the surface, my role as artist becomes director of the actors. Exploring the light reflecting quality of the pigments, they speak of the past transcending time to be re-created on surfaces that echo the Renaissance madonnas, the bright colors on the cathedral ceilings to the transposition of Mother Nature and the awareness of the environment.”

-Michelle Gagliano

 

Videos

 

EVENTS

 

Interviews