7.23.12 Featured Artist: Gina Occhiogrosso

Gina Occhiogrosso, I think we’re close, 2011, gouache on paper, 22 x 30 in

I research, translating and further transform images of our precarious landscape in order to create cautionary tales of our shifting economic and environmental ground. Most references come from extreme cases of weather found on Internet news feeds. The process yields a layering of fragments, teetering and fragile. Like the random chance happening of various disparate objects blowing, drifting together, so do the images in which I build my scenes. I further deconstruct the landscape, making it more abstracted. I rely on negative shapes and solid forms to interact and create tension. The series of billboards come from the same images but are now isolated to show the relevance of our decaying economic landscape.

Gina Occhiogrosso’s work has been shown with Nicole Fiacco Gallery, Hudson, NY, Saratoga Arts Council Art Gallery, Saratoga Springs, NY, Amrose Sable Gallery, Albany, NY, Lake George Project for the Arts, and Yates Gallery at Siena College. National group exhibitions include, The Painting Center, Brenda Taylor Gallery and Lana Santorelli Gallery in NYC, MIA (Miami International Airport) Gallery, and Lehman College Art Gallery, Bronx, NY. Occhiogrosso’s work is viewable at Pierogi Flat Files, in Brooklyn, NY, and through registries such as The Drawing Center and Nurture Art. In 2010, she was included in, “The Other End of the Line,” a project developed by artist Francis Cape created for The High Line in Chelsea, NY. Occhiogrosso’s video, “Homework,” was included in a mobile home trailer (stationed at the beginning of the High Line at Gansevoort Plaza), which contained an exhibition of work by numerous artists and was curated by Ian Berry. This project was reviewed in the The Brooklyn Rail, featuring Occhiogrosso’s piece. She is currently exhibiting in a three-person show titled, “Flux” at The Arts Center of the Capital Region, Troy, NY. The artist lives and works in Troy, NY.

Artist website: ginaocchiogrosso.com