Vickie Vainionpää: Metamorphoses
Belvedere di San Leucio
May 28 – 15 July 2023
Catalogue text by Dr. James Frew︎︎︎
Nicola Pedana Gallery presents ‘Metamorphoses’, the first institutional solo show by Canadian painter Vickie Vainionpää at the UNESCO World Heritage Site of The Belvedere San Leucio.
“Works in this exhibition reference Ovid’s epic poem ‘Metamorphoses’, specifically, the Triumph of Bacchus and Ariadne, a scene which adorns the Grand Dining Room ceiling in a fresco by the Italian Neoclassical painter Fedele Fischetti. In what could be termed a Postdigital reimagining of Fischetti, Vainionpää’s ‘Gaze series’ (2022 – Present) responds to his San Leucio fresco by utilising eye-tracking software to directly translate her own gaze of this work into visualised Bezier curves and lines; the act of gazing itself, through technological allowance, functions here as a conduit of interpretation and transformation.
Through shaping, and being shaped by, the tools and technologies of her time, Vainionpää responds to the stunning location and context of The Belvedere San Leucio metamorphoses themes of technology, lineage, place, and progress.”
Photos: Danilo Donzelli Photography
Video: Agence Qure Montréal