Raw Ribbon #31 by Melodie Provenzano
The prestigious kindergarten through 12th grade school University School of Nashville recently opened up their Christine Slayden Tibbott Center Gallery to public exhibitions. Now the space alternates between student work and works of professional visiting artists. Artists and USN faculty members Emily Holt and Delia Seigenthaler curate the public shows. The first, Visions from the South: Folk and Outsider Artists, opened in September of last year. The second, Raw Ribbon: Still Life by Melodie Provenzano, opens this Thursday, January 9th with a reception from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Melodie Provenzano is a New York City-based painter, filmmaker, multimedia artist and musician, and she’s pretty brilliant in every medium. Check out her figurine-collage and songwriting skills in the below Raw Ribbon promo. (She performs music under the nom de plume Connie Acher.)
Here’s more from the Facebook event page:
Provenzano is best known for her meticulous still life paintings and drawings depicting carefully constructed compositions of glassware, ribbons, toys, figurines, and other objects. She has a BFA from Parsons School of Design and has been commissioned for selected projects by Saks Fifth Avenue, Donna Karan, Hermes, Louis Vuitton, Salvatore Ferragamo, and private collectors.
For her USN exhibit, she is debuting a new series of thirty-five still life paintings on unprimed canvas that will span the gallery wall, forming the suggestion of a long ribbon. Provenzano says, “I’ve heard that a person feels the greatest sense of pleasure when they know for certain that they are just about to attain what they have been wanting. On one level, the gift bows and babies depicted in the paintings represent an exciting prelude to satisfaction. The prospect of being born into something houses eternal anticipation and the promise of fulfillment. However, once a person gets what they want, then the satisfaction eventually fades and new desires arise. Broadly speaking, in the birth of anything there is death, so along this ribbon-like installation of painted objects are notions of birth, death, celebration, and struggle, as well as the stillness and peace one can find within whatever the experience may be.”
Some of Provenzano’s earlier still life drawings, stop motion videos, and actual objects from her works will be on display in an auxiliary gallery room.
If you want to see the show, don’t miss the January 9th opening! It’s the only time you’ll be able to view the work without having to schedule a private viewing.