Isabella Nicastro

In Ombra

'In Ombra' depicts my shadow cast upon my relative’s family home in a remote and mountainous region. There is a golden glow emitted, an idealized world in which I exist wholly as part of the cultural world that I was raised to believe in. My shadow is an extension of the building, a projection onto the space in which I attempt to assert myself within. The shadow acts as the “essence of spirit.”

“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.”