Hope Zaccagni
China road; Oil on panel; 12" x 16"
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Artist's StatementI almost always work in series exploring a concept through many versions of a subject. The subject matter varies depending on what inspires me at the time. Architectural and Industrial subject matter appeal to me as they can be more emotionally neutral than, say a landscape, still life or especially figurative subject matter. The images in my paintings may or may not be representational but I approach them in a very abstract way which allows me to consider formal elements without thinking about the viewer’s emotional response to the work. That being said, once the painting is finished, it may evoke an emotional response to seemingly unemotional subject matter. If that magic happens then I have done my job. “China Road”, the painting selected for The 2019 Southern Tier Biennial, is one of a series of ten small paintings I originally thought would be “sketches” but, as I worked on them, they became completed works in themselves that led to a body of work of much larger paintings of the same theme. Both the series of small paintings and the series of larger paintings are inspired by aerial views of highway
interchanges. What attracted me to the subject matter and what I find so exciting is the movement through space. Some of the paintings in the series are very abstract, some are more representational. “China Road” is somewhere in between. About the ArtistHope Zaccagni graduated from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a Bachelor of Arts in Fine Arts with a concentration in painting and sculpture. In her extensive career as an artist she has been a fine art silver & goldsmith, a puppeteer and puppet maker/designer, and a costume and set
designer/fabricator but is currently focused on painting, primarily in oil. She has shown her paintings in numerous group and solo shows in the northeast. Her work is in several public permanent collections and many private collections. Ms. Zaccagni is an adjunct instructor of drawing and painting at The School of Art and Design, New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University in Alfred, NY. She maintains a studio in Alfred Station, NY. |
