Michaela D'Angelo

ephemera

everything is as it should be, nothing will ever change, nobody will ever die, oil, Italian marble dust, organic mateials on canvas

May 14-June 12, 2010
Opening Reception Friday, May 14, 5-7pm
Artist's Talk: Thursday, May 20, 7pm

An exhibition of oil paintings by Michaela D'Angelo will be on view in AVA Gallery and Art Center's Clifford B. West Gallery from May 14-June 12, 2010. A reception, free and open to the public, will take place on Friday, May 14, from 5 to 7pm.

Michaela D'Angelo, of Etna, NH, began working as an artist in the early 1990s, initially focusing on charcoal portraiture. She began to explore oil painting 10 years ago. Her first exhibition as a painter was a solo show at the Jonathan Shorr Gallery in SoHo, NY, in 2006. D'Angelo currently works from her studio at AVA Gallery and Art Center.

For her exhibition at AVA, ephemera, D'Angelo will be showing several of her most recent large oil-on-canvas paintings. Her works literally have a larger-than-life presence and a decadent subtlety that compels the viewer to spend time with each picture, unraveling its stories. D'Angelo's working method resembles "sculpting with paint," and she includes organic materials, detritus, collage and handwritten texts in the background and surfaces of her images. The fact that some of these ingredients will decay over time emphasizes her interest in the dynamics of relationships and "the passing instants in which our lives are lived and lost." Both deeply personal and universally accessible, her works portray "the excruciating beauty of life -- brief, exquisite and unbearable."

On Thursday, May 20, 2010 at 7pm, D'Angelo will give a talk about her exhibition. The talk will take place in the Clifford B. West Gallery at AVA Gallery and Art Center and is free and open to the public.