Laurie Riccadonna:
Eternal Bloom
Virtual Exhibition
www.amelieawallacegallery.org
Amelie A. Wallace Gallery
SUNY College at Old Westbury
April 5 – June 11, 2021
Artist Talk: Wednesday, April 14, 2021 1:00 PM – 2:30 PM
Eastern Time (U.S. and Canada)
Join Zoom Meeting
https://suny-ow-edu.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJwkdeqrqjwpG9TfSxXOWPGJyuQrgKFJRT2C
Amelie A. Wallace Gallery is pleased to share the virtual exhibition Laurie Riccadonna: Eternal Bloom, which goes live on April 5, 2021. The exhibition consists of paintings and works on paper selected from several of Riccadonna’s series: Garden series, Hanging Garden series, Puzzle series, Tile series, and Plastic Pollution series. An observer and admirer of nature since childhood, as well as a critic of environmental pollution, Riccadonna composes images filled with patterns and decorations inspired by motifs she finds in nature and cities. Having grown up in western Pennsylvania, the artist spent a lot of time observing plants and bugs in her parents’ and grandparents’ gardens. A striking quality of Riccadonna’s work lies in her tendency to frame “close-up” views rather than wide vistas, thus creating a sense of depth with in a very shallow space.
Riccadonna is significantly influenced by the P&D (Pattern and Decoration) Movement of the late 1970s and early 1980s, pioneered by Miriam Schapiro, Robert Zakanitch, and Joyce Kozloff, who reacted against Modernist constraints. Petah Coyne, Beatriz Milhazes, and Ebony Patterson have also fascinated her. Floral motifs, insects, seasonal changes, and the cycle of growth and decay are frequent subjects expressed in sumptuous color.
Riccadonna’s interest in Islamic tile decoration and its expression in Spanish and Portuguese ceramics and Roman mosaics is reflected in her work. The “fragments” in her Puzzle series were inspired by photographs of archaeologists gradually unearthing mosaics to reveal their images. The jigsaw “puzzle bouquets” in her paintings are drawn spontaneously without a completed picture in mind, so are puzzles that cannot be completed—questions rather than statements that invite the viewer to play with perception.
Riccadonna’s Plastic Pollution series is a response to the litter contaminating our streets and sidewalks, “a visual comment on the consequences of society’s rampant consumerism and its addiction to plastic.” For this series, Riccadonna drew from still lifes while augmenting the works from her imagination.
Biography
Laurie Riccadonna is Professor and Department Coordinator of the Art Department of Hudson County Community College, New Jersey. The recipient of the 2020 Association of Community College Trustees Northeast Region Faculty Award, she received her BFA in Painting and Drawing from Pennsylvania State University, and earned an MFA in Painting and Printmaking from Yale University School of Art.
Riccadonna’s art has been exhibited in Spring Break Art Fair, (NYC, NY); Techningmuseet, The Museum of Drawing (Laholm, Sweden); Brooklyn Botanic Garden (Brooklyn, NY); Space B Gallery (NYC, NY); Van Vleck House and Gardens (Montclair, NJ); Hamilton Square (Jersey City, NJ); Village West Gallery (Jersey City, NJ); Center for the Arts at Casa Colombo (Jersey City, NJ); Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences Institute for Research on Women, (New Brunswick, NJ); Art Fair 14C (Jersey City, NJ); and Sensaspace Gallery (NYC, NY). Her work is in the Memorial Sloan Kettering Monmouth Collection (Middleton and Montvale, NJ) and the Hudson County Community College Foundation Permanent Art Collection (NJ).
Riccadonna has completed residencies at the Fundacion Valparaiso, Mojacar, Spain (2003), the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (2004), Vermont Studio Center, (2002), and the Women’s Studio Workshop (2002). She was a recipient of the NJ State Council on the Arts Individual Artist Fellowship (2011, 2002), and Yale University’s Ely Harwood Schless Prize.
Laurie Riccadonna: Eternal Bloom was previously shown at the Benhamin J. Dineen III and Dennis C. Hull Gallery of HCCC, organized by Michelle Vitale, Director of the HCCC Department of Cultural Affairs.
The exhibition may be accessed via www.amelieawallacegallery.org.
Riccadonna will give a talk on April 14, 2021 from 1:00 to 2:30 pm EDT. In order to join the zoom meeting, please register at https://suny-ow-edu.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJwkdeqrqjwpG9TfSxXOWPGJyuQrgKFJRT2C