In Memoriam
by Alessandra STradella at Atria Center City
Exhibition Runs: March 9th - May 11th
In Memoriam
By Alessandra Stradella
How can I talk about what you see?
Choosing to let words flow as they come
To help me
What you see originates from a loss
Loss
Abandonment
Solitude
Fear
Vertigo
But above all Love
Lots of love
Why do I write Love last?
Human, all too human
Feeling the urgency to put this into canvas
For I am not able to put it into words
But I need to understand
Some of this
Get closer to my dad
And myself
The urgency becomes a process
The process a meditation
About absence
And making absence present
Is it even possible?
I don’t know
It doesn’t matter
I paint so to heal
And maybe find
Some answers
Some comfort
A direction
I start with a prayer
A dedication
Which then is covered
By time
Things happen onto older thing
But the prayer stays
A prayer not screamed
Which stays as whispered
Its traces are there
The prayer stays as a question
A question about what?
That which remains
Relationship between memory and traces of memory
How does memory stay?
I wanted a space of silence
A space of darkness
Which is the space in which I paint
The night
A music that reminds me of ritual
What is sacred
Not a sacred that intimidates
A sacred that is about what matters Does any of this matter?
Thank you for being here
Thank you for listening
About the Exhibit:
In Memoriam, by Alessandra Stradella, is a series of paintings that take the viewer on a journey through the artist’s experience of loss, love, and healing. The exhibition will be on view at Atria Center City beginning March 9th in the Art Gallery on the 5th floor, which can be enjoyed by residents and staff.
About the Artist:
Alessandra Stradella is an Italian artist, born and raised in Venice, living between Europe and the USA, and currently based in Philadelphia where she works as Philosophy Professor. Her grandfather, Bepi (Giuseppe) Marino, was a painter, of a post-impressionist school.
In 1990, while completing her studies in Philosophy at the University of Ca’ Foscari (Venice), she came across the theatre and started her theatrical studies and professional career as an actress in the theatre and cinema (1990-2000).
In 2000, she moved to the States, where she earned a M.A. in Philosophy at Georgia State University (2002), and a Ph.D. in Philosophy at Emory University (2008), with a specialization in Philosophy of Art and Aesthetics. It was the experience of the theatre that led her toward Philosophy of Art. And Philosophy of Art, the study of Action Painting in particular, brought her to painting, and back to her grandfather.
She works in abstraction, mainly using acrylic, graphite, charcoal, and pencils on paper, canvas, and panel of various scales.
Although she loves abstraction as an outside-of-concepts realm, it is also true that philosophy informs her artistic search.