Serena Perrone is a visual artist whose work over the past few years represents an increasing depth of innovation into the discipline of printmaking. She divides her time between New York and Italy, from where much of her artistic influence hails. The exhibition title I even knew the legend of the moon and the bonfires references Italian poet and novelist Cesare Pavese. Works include Alberi: Site Specific 2014-15, a portfolio of twelve etchings of exquisite trees of the Italian countryside, Venice Lightforms I-VII 2016, a suite of seven delicate cyanotypes of Italian architecture and Something is About to Happen 2016, a photographic tondo of images developed in the sun using raw pigments. The work, though oftentimes small in scale, is immense in its masterful draftsmanship.
Fata Morgana/Mondo Nuovo 2016-17 marks a new venture for the artist. The work combines print with porcelain, resulting in an outstanding peepshow that presents an ambivalent narrative about the small Sicilian hilltop town of Perrone’s origins. True to any place, the more time spent looking, the more the curtain is drawn back to reveal hidden narratives. Referencing mythology surrounding Mount Etna and memes of Sicilian puppet theater, Fata Morgana, like a mirage or a castle in the sky, is a place of fantasy that holds the promise of harmony, appearing and reappearing suddenly and without warning, just like the Aeolian Islands that vanish in the changing light. Mondo Nuovo, or the New World, recalls Tiepolo's fascination with these microcosmic scenes and the enchanting spectacle of watching while being watched. In this case, Mondo Nuovo reveals this place as though through darkened lens - the constant menace of the hidden all-seeing eye, subplots in the periphery, falseness, a culture of excess and depravity, paranoia, complacency, and self-destruction obscured by the beautiful chaos of the natural surroundings.
Serena Perrone received her MFA in Printmaking from the Rhode Island School of Design (2006) and a BFA in Painting, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale with a BA in Art History and French (2003). She is the recent recipient of a solo exhibition at The Print Center, Philadelphia, PA as part of their 91st Annual International Competition. Perrone is the co-founder of Officina Stamperia del Notaio, an artist residency in Tusa, Italy. She has received a Full Fellowship Artist Residency, Scuola Internazionale di Grafica, Venice, Italy and a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, among others. Her work is in numerous museum collections including the Cleveland Museum of Art, OH; Yale University Art Gallery, CT; Philadelphia Museum of Art, PA; Detroit Institute of Arts, MI; Smith College Museum of Art, MA; Whitney Museum of American Art, NY; and RISD Museum, RI.
