“ The essence of a line is really the essence of the whole entire masterpiece.”
Serena Bocchino is a contemporary artist who began exhibiting her work in 1986 in the East Village, New York, when she was chosen by the artist, Susan Rothenberg to participate in the 4X4, Artists Choose Artists Exhibition at the East Village gallery, Jus de Pomme. The success of that exhibition lead Bocchino to be included in many other exhibitions. In 1987, Bocchino was awarded a studio residency at PS1 MoMA. During that international studio program, The Vice Prime Minister of Italy invited Bocchino to have her first international exhibition in Rome, Italy. For the next several years, Bocchino received recognition from many art institutions, including the Pollock Krasner Foundation, Artists Space, the Basil Alkazzi Foundation, Art Matters and the New Jersey State Council on the Arts awarded her fellowships in both painting and drawing. Her subsequent exhibitions were well received with reviews in the New York Times, Village Voice, Artnews, Art in America and the New Yorker Magazine. From 1988-2014, five films have been created about Bocchino’s work and process, they have been shown on PBS Television, the Museum of Modern Art, The Brooklyn Academy of Music, as well as on the CBS Spectacular in Times Square, New York.
She received her Bachelor of Arts degree, from Fairleigh Dickinson University in 1982, where she studied with the renowned, Polish colorist, Wojciech Fangor. As an undergraduate student, she studied abroad at Wroxton College in Oxfordshire, England. In 1982, during her post graduate year, she toured the art collections of the four main cities of Russia. In 1982, she was accepted into New York University’s Graduate Art Program and received her Master of Arts degree from New York University in 1985.
Serena Bocchino’s work is represented in many international museum, corporate and private collections.
Artist Statement about Museo show and Heritage:
My lively and lyrical abstract painting exhibition at the Museo Italo Americano includes pieces extending from The Romance Series in 2002 through The Veils Series in 2021. Encompassing two decades, this astonishingly diverse range of work presents a virtual record of my generational growth and distinctive development.
My studio practice has been focused on a painterly interpretation of music and movement for the past 30 years. This particular exhibition presents paintings which incorporate many aspects of both music and dance. The works explore music’s lyricism, melody and rhythm through soft and loud abstract imagery, while simultaneously incorporating representational movements analogous to dance. Choosing to exhibit selected works that span twenty years of my art allows an audience to accompany me on a creative journey through my eyes and over a specific period of time. The addition of collaged elements—such as, gold leaf, porcelain, mirrors and cheese cloth—enables the “pause” necessary to produce an overall compositional and color effect, rendering a particular emotive quality to each work.
I am delighted and honored to include the work of my mother, Lucia Confalone Bocchino, and my grandmother (or, “Nana”), Maria DeFazio Confalone, as part of my show, as they have been and always will be part of me. By actually seeing their work alongside mine, one can see clearly how they have inspired me through the artistic talent and Italian heritage they gifted me. Through their works in this exhibit you can observe their skilled technical abilities and unique creative ideas. The generations they represent as both women and artists is an inspiration in itself; they never once allowed their gender or their background to inhibit themselves from pursuing their artistic dreams. The expertise and risk-taking which you can glean from their work were so necessary in their art-making; this inherited, passionate dedication to creativity fuels my studio practice to this day.
My grandmother’s fine crochet work along with her sewing abilities is exhibited here. The precise works included in this exhibit demonstrate her attention to detail and master artistry. Maria DeFazio Confalone was fearless in the pursuit of her vision; I am grateful to have inherited that trait from her.
The variety of mediums and found objects that my mom used in her work was innovative and unique. The way that she incorporated them into her complex collages and assemblages to create provocative compositions is inspirational. Lucia was very particular about her drawing technique, as she was a skilled draftsman. She was a well-known drawer who developed a fine skill with a simple pen and ink line. I have come to realize that the simple line is the essence of my studio practice. My method of pouring paint came from the quest to find a way to create an emotional line that did not utilize ordinary drawing implements; thus, a new line was created for me through the idea of pouring (i.e., “lining”) the paint. My artistic line manifests itself through my drawing with the paint.
It was Lucia who taught me to truly “see” in my own unique way. She introduced me to the masterpieces of art history; she saw that I was eager to learn, and encouraged me to voice my own ideas through art. She taught me how to see the world around me through a distinctive abstract lens: That everything “concrete”—from nature to figures to landscapes—was in actuality built on the concepts and elements of abstraction.
This exhibition is dedicated to my mother and my grandmother, Lucia Confalone Bocchino and Maria DeFazio Confalone. They taught me that to be an artist, “you must take the time to think with your ears, to look with your heart, to listen with your eyes, and to feel with every part of your being the celestial preciousness of life.”
Special thanks to the Museo Italo Americano for inviting me to have this exhibition, permitting me to tell the story about the key personal influences in my development as an artist. Special thanks to the Curator, Bianca Friundi, who has created an exquisite curatorial statement with my work, allowing it to speak in a fresh language for a new audience. Thank you to Mary Serventi-Steiner for her support and encouragement. Very special thanks to James Bacchi (James Bacchi Contemporary, Palm Springs & San Francisco) and Annette Schutz (ArtHaus, San Francisco) for their generous support, insatiable encouragement and forever friendship. A very personal thank you to the loves of my life, my husband Stephen, and my children, Ezra and Rachel Keough, the true songs in my life, who continue to inspire me.
It is an honor to exhibit at the Museo Italo Americano along with two artists I greatly admire, Kara Maria and Nola Pardi Proll. I thank them for their tenacity and their exceptional work. We share an eye to see the beauty in all things as well as our proud heritage as Italian Americans.
