Review: Artistic by Nature
The small joy of shaking a snow globe is in part the slight reassurance that there is still magic in the world, especially from the inside looking out, while you stay protected and hover over a border of fantasy and imitation.
Rosina Bucci’s first solo show is currently on view at La Galleria, located at the Leonardo Da Vinci Centre. On view is a synopsis of all her works to date, with emphasis on her newest forays, portraying Montreal cityscapes skewed.
Utilizing slanted and medium-centric effects, Bucci’s unique perspectives shine through the car window in Riding In My Car; standing at a distance, subjects remotely facing a mythical landscape in Mystic Blue. The piece breathes through the painter’s mastery of the medium, colour palette and visual illusions of the everyday. This is recognized through a blurred effect for heavy raindrops, such as in Summer Rain, a snowy night in Winter Traffic or a thick mist in Equus. The work is divided into three groupings with the artist’s newer work representing personal views through urban panorama, then colliding with conjured exotic provincial country, backed by particular, arbitrary depictions of fantastical spaces, noting horses. All of the pieces are oil on canvas paintings.
The artist, Rosina Bucci, was born in the Campobasso Province in the Molise region of Italy. Since childhood, she has lived in Montreal and most recently started working at the Couleur d’Art Studio as a developed painter.
Bucci works from memory and depicts scenery, mainly from her daily life in Montreal. She is enraptured by certain moments that come only once from specific places, and paints these individual scenes to share the same vision with her viewers. Precisely within her main work, there is a theme of protection. This is done through the depiction of looking through a windshield at the inclement weather, as so many residents of Montreal can relate to. This outlook can invoke warm, fuzzy, and safe feelings, opening one up to the comfort of the weather conditions and in turn, invoking a more pleasant outlook on often taken for granted scenery.
In all respects, this is what Rosina Bucci has set out to do through her practice. She appeals to the natural beauty of everyday scenery, whether it is a daily reality (in the car tending to errands, public transportation on our commute, on our walk home and the seasons have inevitably changed) or a daily fantasy (getting lost in our thoughts while we wait for a light to change, or for the next stop, or longing for warmer weather or the comfort of home and what awaits us there).
Her work is a modern day comparison to that of Van Gogh, especially in Cafe Terrace at Night, where Bucci took a distinct attachment to Van Gogh’s romantic colour palette and idealistic choice of subject. Bucci does the same within her work, but extends it with her grasp of the medium (“The flexibility of oil”, as Bucci explained) to insert an experience, setting the same personal feelings she initially conceived.
Overall, it is a marvellous examination of what it means to be a human resident of Montreal; to live in a city, to go through seasons; that anything and everything can be beautiful to someone. As Henri Matisse, the father of botanical depiction and admiration in art, and somewhat closer to being a naturalist because of it, loosely said, “There are always flowers for those who want to see them.”
This is where I think Bocci strongly might agree. Additionally, the viewer is enabled to feel self-redemption and self-liberation within this notion of beauty created through the works either by Van Gogh, Matisse and exceptionally, Rosina Bocci. You will find that this particular exhibition has successfully coined the term for all its value: “artistic by nature”.
La Piazzetta, Leonardo Da Vinci Centre // 8370 Boulevard Lacordaire // Oct. 21 to 29 // 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. // Free admission
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