A FANTASTIC exhibition by artist and printmaker Maria Bagnoli entitled ‘The Daily Path of Memory’ will be on show at the Alley Theatre in Strabane up until Friday, March 2, 2018.The exhibition is based on Maria’s childhood memories using print, video and photography. Exploring the artist’s journey into her past through visual interpretation, this exhibition features a range of mediums to creatively discover her path: paper negatives, photo silkscreens, graphics and videos.
Maria creates works in print using relief, intaglio and silk screen to create texture.
She refers to nature asher starting point, with drawing as a foundation, although watercolour painting and using inks are a vital part of the processes she uses.
As a new departure in Maria’s creative practice she is also incorporating video and texts into her new work.
Most of us have some connection with our past and a desire to feel connected to it in an age where visual material is very instant and fast moving, where we often forget as so much is made instantly available to us.
In this context, the artist deliberately chose old Kodak black and white photographs or changed colour ones into black and white.
She also made use of paper negatives, a method used by early photographers to reproduce an image, when glass plates were not often available.
The exhibition follows a narrative, starting with drawings and collages in the ‘search’ for the path of memory.
There is a drawing entitled ‘Graph’ which is the artist’s response to a display of old Kodak photos pinned to the wall, and the strength of the emotional attachment to the images is translated into saturated to non-saturated rectangles of black through to grey chalked areas around the sheet of paper.
From this the image of ‘granny’s house’ seemed to have the greatest emotional pull for the artist, and this image re occurs throughout the exhibition.
This becomes the main focus of the path of memory, leading one back to this place.
Further work was done on this house, in spoken voice recordings, transparencies and the enlarged image, taken from the original photograph taken in the 1950’s.
Memories in the project are not just visualised.
They are presented as voice recordings, sounds, and in texts from poets, as in ‘Quiet Affirmations’ – the point at which the project has become firmly established in the entire process of its journey.
The poets chosen are TS Eliot, from ‘The Four Quartets’ – a work that the artist has re-read since childhood, and from Alain Fournier’s ‘Le Grand Meaulnes’ – a novel that has made a lasting impression on the artist and is very much part of this memory path.
The project took Maria Bagnoli three years to complete – marking a turning point and new work in the artist’s career.
Maria is a graduate of Camberwell Art School, London with a BA Hons in painting.
Her work has been exhibited in the UK, Italy & Portugal. Since moving to Ireland in 2001, she has joined the Leitrim Sculpture Centre – exhibiting in group and solo shows and also running wonderful printmaking workshops.
For further information on the ‘Daily Path of Memory’ exhibition please contact the Alley Theatre on 028 71 384444 or visit www.alley-theatre.com
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