My Iona

Exhibitions

Carthage

Paintings by Fedele Spadafora

March 18 - April 12, 2024

Sponsored by Professor Nilofer Naqvi

Location | Br. Kenneth Chapman Gallery located in the JoAnn Mazzella Murphy '98H Arts Center

Gallery Events

Artist Talk
Wednesday, March 20 from 12:30 - 1:30 p.m.
Murphy Auditorium

Reception with Artist
Wednesday, March 20 from 4:30 - 6:30 p.m.
Location | Br. Kenneth Chapman Gallery located in the JoAnn Mazzella Murphy '98H Arts Center 

Iona University's Br. Kenneth Chapman Gallery is pleased to present Carthage, a collection of paintings and drawings created by Fedele Spadafora on the subject of Tunisia from 2012 to 2023. Arriving in Tunisia just months after the Jasmine Revolution of 2011 that started the Arab Spring, Spadafora’s first impressions of the country came in the form of massive revolutionary enthusiasm. As far as post-revolutionary societies go, Tunisia after 2011 is not Spadafora’s first one, that would be Prague after the Velvet Revolution of 1989. Spadafora moved to Prague in 1991 and lived among the Czechs for nearly a decade, working as an artist, illustrator and book publisher. While life in Prague was driven by the desire to be a bohemian, life in Tunisia was driven by marriage and family. This exhibition will be on view from March 18 - April 12, 2024. A reception a gallery tour will be hosted during the first week of the exhibition, the date and time to be announced in March 2024.

As a painter, Spadafora has an interest in painting places he has deeply experienced, and as a restless traveler he divides his time between New York and Tunisia. In 2013 Spadafora first presented paintings on the subject of both Tunisia and Prague in an exhibition titled New Paintings at Slag Contemporary in New York.

Carthage flyer.

“Moved by the brilliant blues of the skies above a yet incipiently post-revolutionary Tunisia, Fedele Spadafora tasks himself with conveying, within the arguably fixed matrices of painting, cerulean hues so rich and deep that they’re palpably warm, so alive that they appear ever a shift. However unexpectedly, though, tasking himself therewith conjured memories of previous years spent in the Czech Republic beneath less frequent blues of a far cooler sort, yet one that was then not altogether differently charged– self-renewing, socioeconomically, politically. The American artist’s solo show of new paintings at Slag contemporary bears calm yet vibrant witness to relatable historical riffs and drifts as glimpsed in and beneath distant skies.”
–Paul D’Agostino, L Magazine

One the first paintings on the subject of Tunisia to appear in New Paintings was created by the artist on the island of Djerba in 2013 and is titled Falling Star in Djerba. Muslim tradition tells us that demons can occasionally be found listening at the gates of heaven where they hope to acquire fragments of knowledge of things which are to happen in the future. This knowledge can be used against humanity. When seen by angels, these demons are pelted by shooting stars to drive them away.

“Neo-mythological folklore is revealed in Falling Star in Djerba (2013), depicting a meteor over the Tunisian island city in the Gulf of Gabes. The colors and composition fall halfway between abstract and figuration but the work resonates as a celestial event.”
–Valerie Oisteanu, Art.es


“The artist is seeking a deeper emotional self-connection in TV Tower, a bleak rendition of a huge structure that served as a communications antenna in communist Czechoslovakia; it essentially functioned as a jamming device to repel broadcasts from the ‘putrefied degenerate’ democratic nations (still extant, today it is used as a commercial TV and broadcasting tower). It looks like a giant robot stuck in its tracks.”–Valerie Oisteanu, Art.es

The Žižkov Television Tower, a monument to the high-tech authoritarianism of the former regime, appears in several works. In each painting, the tower is bathed in cobalt blue, as though irradiated in microwave signals. This is Spadafora at his best, with a realism zapped with the realities of technology and its role in how we remember the lives we lead.
–James Panero, The New Criterion

The tendency towards Tunisian subject matter that began in the New Paintings exhibition of 2013 has evolved over the years into portraiture of family, friends and strangers, landscape and still life. The exhibition Carthage gives Spadafora the opportunity to present a large selection of works about this other life, his home away from home.

Past Exhibitions

  • The Gratitude Project: Paintings and Poetry by the US Poets Laureate
  • Time is a River | Curated by Cara Lynch
  • A Gift Of Light | Works by Br. Kenneth Chapman
  • Visual Arts Student Exhibition 2023
  • Saving Beauty: The Contemporary Icons of Threatened And Endangered Species of Angela Manno by Angela Manno
  • My Own Rose-Tinted 3D Glasses by Werner Sun
  • Dublin Bay by Liam Hourican
  • FORMATION: Images of the Body by Tobi Kahn
  • Personae by Carlos David
  • Visual Arts Student Exhibition 2022
  • The Weight of Optimism: Works by Heather Layton
  • Considering the Goddess: A Survey of Sculptural Works by John Cino
  • Cesare Dandini’s Holy Family with the Infant St. John: A Rediscovered Florentine Baroque Masterpiece
  • A Hidden Wholeness: The Zen Photography of Thomas Merton*
  • Art as a Spiritual Practice
  • A Woman's Work..., Curated by Beth Giacummo
  • Struggle - An Exhibit of Our Times, The Lincoln Park Conservancy, Inc.
  • Female Gender Identity and Equality by the New York Society of Women Artists
  • Unapologetically Me by Alvin Clayton
  • Women in the Abstract: A Solo Exhibition by Award-Winning Artist, Steve Lyons
  • Visual Arts Faculty Exhibition
  • Plastic Paradise by Elena Kalman
  • Female Gender Identity and Equality By New York Society of Women Artists (NYSWA)
  • The Visual Arts Student Exhibition, curated by The Visual Arts Faculty
  • SHE Voices: Expressions of Femininity, featuring Esther Kong Lo, Gloria Crouch-Nixon and Judith Weber.
  • Influenced by Matisse: New Works by Alvin Clayton
  • Shifting Focus: Hidden in Plain Sight, Curated by Rick Palladino
  • More Fun Than Fun, featuring Andrea Beizer, Alysa Bennett, Ruby Silvious, Carol Taylor-Kearney, Peter Treiber, and Ruth Wolf
     
The Gratitude Project flyer.
Time is a River icon.
A Gift of Light flyer.
2023 Student Art Exhibit
My Own Rose-Tinted 3D Glasses by Werner Sun Postcard
A postacrd for the Dublin Bay exhibit.
Formation Exhibit, October 24-December 12
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Hours and Contact Information


Gallery

JoAnn Mazzella Murphy '98H Arts Center
665 North Avenue
New Rochelle, NY 10801

Hours:
Monday & Wednesday 11 - 6 p.m.
Tuesday | Noon - 6 p.m.
Thursday | Noon - 8 p.m.
Saturday & Sunday | Noon - 5 p.m.
Closed for school holidays 

Contact

Beth Giacummo
Phone: (914) 633-2208
Email: bgiacummo@iona.edu

Past Exhibition Spotlight

The Gratitude Project: Hilda Green Demsky

The Gratitude Project is a profound exploration of the collective sentiments during the challenging years of the Covid-19 pandemic. In response to The New York Times' invitation on Thanksgiving 2020, thirty Poets Laureate of the United States submitted concise expressions of gratitude for their states after the tumultuous year of the pandemic. Hilda Green Demsky, inspired by these powerful words, created a series of oil paintings interpreting each poem, resulting gin a unique blend of poetry and visual art.