Faculty of Art

Drawing and Painting

Isabella Nicastro

Dentro La Chiesa

By cropping images and solely capturing certain out-of-context moments and experiences, I present the viewer with a fragmented and disconnected sense of self, removing them from the total context of experience.The intimacy of these iPhone-style images is especially prominent here: my relative’s side profile is awkwardly cut off in a tightly-cropped reduction of her face and figure. A sense of both intimacy and urgency is created when she becomes relegated to the bottom-right section of the picture plane. The viewer is only privy to specific details, and is left to wonder about the true nature of the depicted situation.

“Inspired by a trip to my grandparents’ town of origin in the south of Italy, this body of work seeks to investigate the intersection between my southern Italian ancestral heritage and my upbringing in Canada. A fragmented sense of identity commonly found in second and third generation citizens is dissected through the lens of personal experience. Close-cropped, abnormal compositions juxtapose conventional European methods of oil painting, displacing the viewer from the entire context of the world in which they are immersed, echoing the manner in which I am disconnected from the complete context of my heritage. These works present covert emblems embedded throughout, inquiring how factors such as religion, superstition, and cultural practices have dispersed through my familial lineage by inviting the viewer to observe complexities surrounding spiritual beliefs and the intangible.”