Dialoghi dell’Arte 2014-15
International Tour: USA | CHINA | ITALY

May 22 – June 25, 2015

Opening: Friday, May 22 at 6pm

Martha Armstrong, Pamela Bowers, Cynthia Bridgman, Caren Canier, Tina Engels, Alan Feltus, Jessie Fisher, Dan Gustin, Lani Irwin, Geoffrey Miller, Barry Nemett, Laini Nemett, Richard Piccolo, Langdon Quin, Scott Seebart, David Voros

Leedy-Voulkos Art Center, Kansas City, MO: June 6th – July 6th, 2014
Guilin Museum of Art, Guilin, China: April 5th-10th, 2015
SACI Gallery | Palazzo dei Cartelloni, Florence, Italy: May 22nd- June 25th
Galleria Bocca al Lupo, ICA. Montecstello di Vibio, Italy 2015: July 2015 | Reception July 4th

“To embrace and absorb, that is enlightenment. We have inherited the entire history and 
knowledge of art before us. You belong to a tradition. Italy is the fountain. Come and drink.” — Milarepa, 11th century Buddhist poet and saint

Dialoghi dell’Arte at the SACI Gallery in Palazzo dei Cartelloni, is the third exhibition in an international tour which has traveled from the Leedy-Voulkos Art Center, Kansas City, Missouri, USA and the Guilin Museum of Art in Guilin, China to arrive in Italy at the Studio Art Centers International before traveling to its final destination at the International Center for the Arts in Montecastello di Vibio. The exhibition features 31 paintings from 16 American artists (including some from the SACI Artists Council and visiting SACI instructors), writers and educators who form the painting collective, Dialoghi dell’Arte (A Discourse on Art). Collective members include, Martha Armstrong (MA), Pamela Bowers (SC), Cynthia Bridgman (IL | Italy), Caren Canier, (NY | Italy), Tina Engels (IL), Jessie Fisher (MO), Alan Feltus (Italy), Dan Gustin (IL | Italy), Lani Irwin (Italy), Geoffrey Miller (NY), Barry Nemett (MD), Laini Nemett (NY), Richard Piccolo (Italy), Langdon Quin (NY | Italy), Scott Seebart (MO), and David Voros (SC).

Heavily influenced by the artistic traditions of central Italy, this group of dedicated painters find themselves fusing the lineage of American Post-Abstract figuration with individual responses to Italian paesaggio, the elegance of the Sienese, the crystalline abstraction of Piero, linear traditions of the Florentine School and its sensual counterpart in Venice, grand rhetoric of Mannerism, Baroque extravagance in Rome, the sublime narrative of the Metaphysical painters and the intimate tabletop of Morandi. For the painters in this group, motif is not defined by stylistic quality, rather, through the subtle appropriation of the vast expanse of Italian aesthetic influence.

In the exhibition essay for this group’s inaugural exhibition at the McMaster Galleries at the University of South Carolina in 2013, Pamela Bowers and David Voros, directors of the International Center for the Arts, wrote of the group’s connection to a cultural and geographic location: “Each year they return to Italy to immerse themselves in both local Umbrian culture and the rich history the region has to offer as well as to participate in this critical community of contemporary artists that is generated, in part, by their presence there. In this, Italy influences not only their own work but also their teaching. Through them, the rich legacy of Italian art continues to inspire generations of young painters.”

Please see the collective’s webpage for more information at: www.jessiefisherstudio.com or the SACI website.

SACI Gallery
Palazzo dei Cartelloni
Via Sant’Antonino, 11 – Florence, Italy
T 055 289 948

Open Monday – Friday, 9am – 7pm
Saturday & Sunday 1pm-7pm

Admission is free