Gina Occhiogrosso presents over 25 paintings, 3 assemblages, 2 accordion sketchbooks, and 1 video, in her solo exhibition titled, Surfacing, in our Main Gallery from January 14, 2021, to March 11, 2022. Spanning the past five years, it will touch upon the empowerment of the feminine in contemporary painting, the boundaries of craft and fine art, the pandemic, job loss, and other themes.

Occhiogrosso’s paintings are composed through the application of wet color on a surface and through the process of disassembly and realignment. Throughout the paintings, slightly raised seams are made where freshly painted edges join, creating both linear and sculptural elements. The seams suggest ties that are tenuous yet sturdy, fragile yet unified. Bright colors, shifting shapes and the visibility of seams connect to notions of pattern, fashion, crafts, and the history of “women’s work.” The toughness and thinness of the fabric is a reminder of the tension inherent in that history

She has been greatly influenced by the women in her family. Her paternal grandmother was an Italian immigrant and a seamstress, and her maternal grandmother was an Austrian immigrant who created very intricate lacework(tatting) for tablecloths and other linens. In addition, her mother, an artist, worked as a shoe designer in the fashion industry in New York in the late 1950s, early 1960s.

In addition to presenting over 25 paintings, Occhiogrosso developed narratives in other media that were inspired by the events of the past two years. At the beginning of the pandemic, she moved in with her aging mother and decided to document the interior of her house (Occhiogrosso’s childhood home) in an accordion sketchbook that unfolds like time. Utilizing a model dollhouse, she simulated sunrise and sunset through low tech means, to deliver a poem about the pandemic to the viewer that moves like light cast upon the wall. With the use of another accordion sketchbook, Occhiogrosso focusses on the political and environmental flux we have experienced over the last two years. She also saved materials from a job lost, grocery bags from curbside pickup, take-out containers from lunches delivered while at a residency that had been closed for a year. All come together as colorful diaristic works of art.