Cristina Vergano
Cristina Vergano (1960) is a fine artist born and raised in Italy, presently living and working in New York City. Her classical, academic painting style offsets the highly imaginative content of her work. A playful, surreal vein runs through the artist’s work, along with a subtle feminist concern and a wink to Pop art. Vergano’s paintings are populated with human-animal hybrid creatures, Muslim women in lingerie, flying saucers, word games, and amused references to Ingres, Picasso, Lichtenstein, and other masters, both old and modern.
Life
Born in Milano in 1960, Cristina Vergano studied at the International School of Milan[1], Liceo Cassini, and Universita’ di Genova.
Vergano painted and drew since early childhood, while absorbing a creative mindset and practical knowledge from her father and grandfather, both fine artists. Frequent and extensive visits to art museums and European travels created in the artist a lasting influence of classical balance and solid technique, while classical studies gave her work a conceptual basis. After obtaining a degree in Italian Letters and Art History, the artist permanently moved to the United States in 1984.
Having lived in Florida and Georgia, Vergano moved to New York City in 1990, where she expanded her work to industrial design, creating a line of products for New York’s Museum of Modern Art and the Liberty Science Center. She also showed her paintings at the Elaine Benson Gallery, the Denise Bibro Gallery, the New York School of Interior design, the Chicago Athenaeum, the Parrish Art Museum and the New York Law School.
In 1996 Vergano had her first solo exhibition at the Woodward Gallery in New York City[2], which has successfully shown and represented her since. In addition to the Woodward Gallery, recent venues for Vergano’s work have been: the University of Ohio, the Laguna Art Museum, the Art Museum at Florida International University, White Box, the City of Brea Art Gallery, the Decordova Museum, and the Anthropology Museum of the People of New York.
Recognition
Feature articles about Vergano’s work have repeatedly appeared in Juxtapoz Magazine, Art and Antiques, The Georgia Review[3], and American Arts Quarterly. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, ArtNews, Art in America, New York Magazine, Esquire Japan, the Nora Roberts novel “Black Rose”, and the book cover of “Half Mammals of Dixie”, by George Singleton.
Collectors
Vergano’s paintings are part of several private and corporate collections, among which are Barry Sonnenfeld, Richard and Carol Kalikow, Whoopi Goldberg, The Coleman Group, Madonna, William Herbert Hunt, Robert and Courtney Novogratz, Jonathan Ross and Cooper Classics.
Just for You Art Show
JUST FOR YOU New ideas kept surfacing as I was painting this cycle of works and I decided I would follow this creative abundance rather than keep to a single theme. As a result, Just for You is a vital exhibition, dense with concepts and ideas. A surreal, playful vein runs through the work, along with a subtle feminist concern and a wink to the masters, old and modern.
Pop Art’s influence emerges In many of the paintings the form of talk balloons or Lichtenstein paintings taken out of context. This ironic graphic imagery playfully offset scenes I painted in the classical style.
Several pieces represent my recent obsession with Picasso. In two portraits of his companions, Olga Khokhlova and Francoise Gilot, I blend Picasso’s style and mine, and insert trompe l’oeil clippings of his poetry and photos. I re-imagined Demoiselles d’Avignon, set in a California modernist (whore) house, populated with nude beauties, caught in the act of taking off their African masks to reveal their own animal heads. They recall female versions of Egyptian gods as well as classical statues, with a substantial nod to surrealism.
Two powerful, monochromatic life-size paintings feature Muslim women, revealing -Just for You- the brightly colored, sexy western lingerie they are wearing under their traditional garb. The Holy Mosque in Mecca and the Shah Mosque in Isfahan are identifiable in the backgrounds of the half-naked women. This work poses questions about the conflict between religion, traditional culture and personal identity. Are the women identifying with Victoria’s Secret models, or are they true to themselves when wrapped in their burkhas?
1950's-style flying saucers appear in the distance, in many of the pieces. They act as catalysts, symbolizing everything we anticipate of fear: the advent of a golden age, the economic crisis, maybe even the Rapture.
In the end, I have no answers only questions. This work raises issues about female identity, expectations and desires, our secret selves, and the role of art in our culture. Just for You.
References
- ^ "Cristina Vergano's Bio". cristinavergano.com. Retrieved 2009-07-09.
International School of Milan
- ^ "Woodward Gallery". woodwardgallery.net. Retrieved 2009-07-09.
First Solo Show
- ^ "Cristina Vergano's Bio". cristinavergano.com. Retrieved 2009-07-09.
literary magazine published by the University of Georgia