Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/110352
The Many Colors of Liviana Casotti Are On Display at Gallery 208 by SONI MARTIN that is in my past and cannot be retrieved but is in my memory. I cannot Fayetteville is a city ���lled with people and artists who are originally from locations around the world. Gallery 208 celebrates this international bene���t by retrieve better days, nor revive people and animals lost during my life but I can put bright colors on my painting and depict objects of nostalgia to diffuse hosting a one-person exhibition titled New Paintings by Liviana Casotti. Born the longing. A search for order, but the realities of disorder are present in the and trained in Italy, Casotti has resided intermittently in Fayetteville over the compositions as in my life.��� past 18 years. Quick to share her views about content and meaning, Casotti explained that Visitors to the Feb. 28, opening at Gallery 208 will meet the artist and may her work today is about ���truth and life, order and disorder ��� a painting will recognize her as someone who attends most of the gallery openings in the evoke both. My painting evokes nostalgia, a feeling or re���ection on a pleasant area ��� she is always in attendance at the Gallery 208 openings. If you don���t and safe past, a time of life that was know Casotti, her paintings are just as innocent, simpler and even happier.��� intriguing as her artistic journey. I asked her how studying art in the Born in Lucca, Italy, Casotti studied United States was different than when art in her hometown and later earned an she studied in Italy. art teaching degree in Florence, Italy. ���That���s easy. In Italy they have a very The Italian lifestyle and her early art traditional academic approach while experiences were steeped in classical the schools I attended in Oklahoma western tradition, her studies in art and California focused more on the included the rigors of drawing and intellectual idea of exploring meaning painting from life, the ���gure and still life. and content. Although drawing is taught Academics centered on understanding in the lower-level art courses, in the the theory and techniques of masters of United States the upper-level courses the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries. focus on the many different approaches Her life and art career took a turn to contemporary meaning and introduce when she married and moved to you to the variety of styles which are Lawson, Okla. She then studied art still prevalent,��� she explained. and earned a bachelor���s of ���ne art from Although Casotti often returns to Italy Cameron University in Oklahoma. to visit, her home has been Fayetteville Upon completion of her degree, she for the last 10 years, so I was interested moved to California and began studying in knowing what she has observed in the art at San Jose State University. I met visual arts locally and how, if any, it has Liviana when she moved to Fayetteville changed or remained the same. in 1996. An exuberant and effervescent ���I see galleries come and go in individual, Casotti���s passion for art, Fayetteville, now it seems there are very politics and thinking out-of-the-box was few left at this time,��� she said. ���The always, and still is, contagious. closing of the Fayetteville Museum of Over the years, she has exhibited in Art has had a huge negative impact on group invitationals at the Arts Council The works of Liviana Casotti will be on display at Gallery 208. the arts in the area. It seems as if too and at two venues which no longer exist many art venues are focused on creating ��� the Fayetteville Museum of Art and revenue instead of bringing exhibitions to the area which broadens our idea a one person exhibition at the Architect���s Gallery. Knowing her history in the of what is happening nationally and internationally in the arts. On the other area, I was interested in sharing her views of the arts in Fayetteville and how hand, I think Gallery 208 has always been committed to the arts in the purest studying art in the United States in���uenced her approach to painting. sense and hosts excellent exhibitions ��� art for art���s sake of high quality���. When I stopped by Casotti���s studio she was working on a still life; the The public is invited to meet Casotti and view her new body of work natural light from the window was just right, her canvas painted with during the opening reception of New Paintings by Liviana Casotti at Gallery patterns of bright turquoise, many shades of green, complements of reds 208 on Feb. 28, between 5:30 and 7 p.m. Gallery 208 and orange, a dab of yellow here and there. Similar to her earlier work, her is located at 208 Rowan St. Regular hours to view their palette is still key; but a new system of exaggerated patterns is now part exhibits are Monday-Friday, 9 a.m. ��� 5 p.m. For those of her work, ���xating on the affects of color and light. It is easy to see the who cannot make the opening patterns in the metal kitchen appliances of her still life; her choice of objects SONI MARTIN, Arts Writer, reception, the exhibit will remain is always symbolic. COMMENTS? Editor@upandcomopen through the third week Her still life is organized with kitchen tools and appliances, often dog ingweekly.com in April. leashes and bowls ��� all metaphors for, according to Casotti, ���part of a world Family Friendly! ���Kids Eat Free��� on Tuesdays (with purchase of adult entree) Open Daily for Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner Banquet rooms available up to 100 guests WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM 1304 Morganton Rd. Mon-Sat: 6am-10pm Sun: 7am-2:30pm 484-0261 Serving Fayetteville Over 50 Years! FEBRUARY 20-26, 2013 UCW 13