Also don’t forg…

Also don’t forget to check out the school’s Flickr account!!

which you can access on the side bar on this site

Siena

For those of us who signed up we went on a lovely little visit to the town of Siena last Friday. It was rainy and chilly but that did not diminish the beauty of this adorable Tuscan town. We were shown around by a Sienese (which I just have to say that SRISA is really good at getting a tour guide who really connects with the area they are showing and really has a passion for what they are telling you throughout the tour). We all enjoyed a delicious lunch at a small little restaurant right near the Siena Duomo. Then we had about three hours to walk around as we liked in the city before we re-boarded the bus to head back to  Florence

Sorrento, Pomei, Naples…. Oh My!!!

So this previous weekend the students went on a three day visit to Sorrento, Pompei and Naples! Accompanied by Marta, Alexandra and Lorenzo we were bussed down to Sorrento where we stayed in a wonderful little hotel that even served breakfast!!

The first night there we adjusted to the warmth of this southern city and enjoyed a lemon-cello tasting at a local shop. It was a relative early night as we all had to up and ready to go by 8:30 so that we could get to Pompei nice and early!

Pomei was so wonderful! it was not at all what most people expected, it is quite excavated and huge!! and most of Pomei is not even excavated yet. There was plenty of time given to the students to take pictures of the site as well as a wonderful explanation of the city and its history by our own professor, Lorenzo. The tour of Pompei lasted about three hours and then we all went out to Pizza together. After pizza the group split up, most of the students went back to Sorrento so that they could spend the remainder of the afternoon in Capri. Which unfortunately did not work out because the last boat back to Sorrento would leave Capri after they would only have been on Capri for 45 minutes. So they enjoyed the cute side streets filled with shopping and the beautiful port in Sorrento. Two students decided against going to Capri preferring to go climb Mount Vesuvius. We all met up again for dinner at a cute little restaurant that is right on the water and enjoyed some fresh seafood Sorrento style.

The third and final day was our Naples day! We were met by the tour guide in Sorrento and enjoyed her commentary all the way to Naples, including her adorable surprise at seeing a Ferrari. In Naples we got a brief overview of the city and its many churches, and even got some shopping done. And to our luck it was Palm Sunday so we got to see the processions that occur during this holiday, and also we saw lots of olive branches being blessed, as they use olive branches instead of palm leaves. Then we enjoyed the best meal ever at the restaurant that invented the margarita pizza, and we enjoyed this meal while being serenaded by a wonderful guitar singer. And to top this wonderful meal off we stopped at a very suave patisserie where you could get the traditional Baba or the famous Canoli.

And needless to say everyone passed out promptly on the bus ride back to Florence. All in all, the best trip ever!!!!

“The Architecture of Drawing,” Zeuler Lima

The school hosted its first show of the semester this past Friday the 18th. It featured the art of Zeuler Lima. 

“This exhibition explores the relationship between drawing and architecture in a collection of works in different formats. While drawing represents architecture and its spaces, it also presents its own space and architecture. The interest in this relationship was born out of the need to produce portable works during several trips in the last decade, leading to the appropriation of different supports that could be transported, folded, juxtaposed, printed and even discarded. Many of the works in this exhibition document the observation of urban and architectural landscapes and the use of notebooks and objects collected along the way. Some of them were reworked in studio and some of them were produced specifically for the rooms of the museum, from the intimate scale of the sketchbook to the embrace of the exhibition space. A drawing can be and express many things: a realistic image, a baroque perspective, a visual impression, a gesture, an experiment. Likewise, the surface that contains it can be more than just the plane of the paper and give it new meanings. More than finished works, this exhibition investigates the act of drawing.”

 

All of the students attended the exhibit opening and were extremely entranced by the works, which take advantage of the space they are in and really interacts with the viewer. Many students spent a lot of their time looking over his accordion style sketchbooks that were laid out on two tables and the intricate drawings that lay inside them. Many of the students stated that seeing so much work done in the show that it made them want to break open their sketch book at that moment and work more! Student Julia B. was very impressed by Zeuler’s command of space and keeping the drawings detailed without actually having too much detail in the images. She also was quite in awe of his strong lines and how secure the artists seems with his lines, there was no wavering line in any of the works.

Cortona

The rainy weather could not extinguish the excitement of the first school field trip to Cortona on Friday. The student were pumped up and excited to see and explore the historic town, even when confronted with such steep hills early in the morning. We all went on a very informative guided tour of the city and got to see various historic bits of the city such as the towns Duomo and the Piazza della Repubblica. After our tour the group of students divided into two in search of a good place to eat. Then we all went pursuing around the city taking in its beauty and staving away the cold. Mainly we stayed around the Via Nazionale so as to not get lost in this very different city. Only one brave student made it all the way to the Church Santa Margherita, which lies on top of the city, at the top of the hill.  Needless to say that the whole trip back to Florence was quite silent as everyone passed out from such an awesome day out seeing the wonders of Italy.

Photo Courtesy of Emily Yancey

Photo Courtesy of Emily Yancey

Photo Courtesy of Emily Yancey

Photo Courtesy of Emily Yancey

Photo Courtesy of Emily Yancey

Welcome Dinner

As always the staff threw a wonderful welcome dinner for the students this semester at Buca Poldo Restaurante.  The dishes were exemplary and the students greatly enjoyed the whole meal, although many could not get through all the dishes. Following the Italian culture the meal was served in multiple courses, starting with the antipasto and ending with dessert. Although, it seemed like the students all got full by their second dish, or secondo, and when the waiters saw all these still full plates they joked with the students about the taste of the food. The conversations were definitely flowing through out the night, never a dull moment with such a wonderful group. Compared to last semester there is a significant influx of students, which is super exciting and the possibilities for this semester is endless. Already there was a somewhat informal welcome dinner at Zaza on move-in day, which was really just a thrown together dinner by some of the returning students. The dinner was really a way to show the new students the best, and less expensive, Italian meal and to start getting to know everyone. That one dinner really let the students warm up to each other and by the time of the SRISA welcome dinner everyone was quite comfortable with each other which let the students socialize without that awkward new kid syndrome.

Photo Courtesy of Emily Yancey

Photo Courtesy of Emily Yancey

Photo Courtesy of Emily Yancey

Dennis Olsen – From Aaron to Zeno

Dennis Olsen

from Aaron to Zeno

curated by Rebecca Olsen

opening Tuesday July 10th- at 6.30-8:30 pm

SRISA Gallery of Contemporary Art, Florence

Two headed twins, strange monstrous faces, elegant ladies, and leery-eyed men are just some of the images included in the archive of portraits (80 in total) that are included in the installation by Dennis Olsen, for the SRISA Gallery of Contemporary Art. These images represent an entire body of work that has been the focus of Olsen’s attention for the past four years.  For Olsen, this is the first time that the work will be viewed together in one space. The works are not in their original format but are reproductions, produced for the exhibition in a smaller more intimate format. Framed and informally arranged in the gallery, the work reminds us of a family album situated outside of time and positioned in a fictional place, whose only common ancestor is the artist that created them.   Each portrait is titled with a name, and accompanied by a short narrative depicting a personal anecdotal history. The stories are printed in a booklet, and the spectator is invited to browse the images and read the narratives imagining the characters whose tales may be all too familiar; or to contemplate new narratives within the faces, whose lines tell a story.

In terms of subject, this work represents a clear departure for Olsen’s earlier work that often incorporated the use of text, architectural elements and imagined landscapes.  These faces emerge through a build up of marks and lines that Olsen appropriates through rubbings taken from portraits found on paper money that is scanned and manipulated to produce relief images.  While the new subject matter is in stark contrast to his earlier work, these fictive portraits relate strongly to Olsen’s use of process in the creation of his imagery.  Olsen’s background is in printmaking, but over time his work evolved, utilizing non-traditional printing techniques as well as the new technologies.  In the 1980s Olsen was creating works that were produced completely on the computer.  In 2003 Olsen ventured out of the 2D realm and began creating low relief ceramic works incorporating text. His interest in innovation is strong and at each stage of his creative development Olsen had invented and reinvented himself. The use of narrative is new to Olsen’s work, however, the fictive tales clearly draw from Olsen’s rich life and imagination.

Many have said that this is Olsen’s “capolavoro”. It is certainly the product of a life time of research that has culminated in a rich personal catalog of imagery, textures and ideas that is blended with an exhaustive life experience that spans continents. Olsen has produced a body of work that is both compelling and beautiful, filled with humor and a bit disturbing.

Bio and Background: Dennis Olsen is Professor of printmaking, drawing, and digital media at the University of Texas at San Antonio.   He received his M.A. degree from UCLA in 1967 and in that year was awarded a Fulbright grant to study printmaking in Italy.  In 1970 he co-founded the Santa Reparata Graphic Art Centre, now the Santa Reparata International School of Art (SRISA) in Florence, Italy, where he served as Director of Printmaking until his return to the United States in 1981. He is now President of the SRISA Board of Directors.

Mr. Olsen’s work has been included in more than 160 exhibitions in the USA, Italy, Canada, Holland, France, Belgium, Mexico, Germany, Peru, Turkey, Estonia, Finland, and Russia.

The images have been shown separately in several solo exhibitions entitled “Fictive Portraits: Samplings from a Timeless Village”.  In April 2012, Olsen published a book of 35 of the images under the same title.  The books can be purchased online at http://www.blurb.com/books/3230832

The exibition is open to the public from July 10th to August 1st, 2012, from 12pm-10pm. for more information: 055-4627374, gallery@srisa.org

SRISA and VCU Hit Pitti Fashion Week

Visiting program VCU had a taste of Florence’s Pitti Uomo/Donna Fashion Week. Together with SRISA fashion students, the group set off to the Fortezza del Basso and other city sites to partake in three days of non-stop activities. The fashionistas received their trade fair badges which allowed them to enter the fair and exhibit halls to see the newest Spring and Summer 2013 collections from established and emerging designers.

Pitti is the largest fashion fair in Florence, and hosts two fashion weeks per year, for Spring/Summer and Fall/Winter. During these weeks, the city of Florence comes alive with stylish people, glamorous events, and an opportunity to learn about the season’s upcoming trends.

To learn more about the SRISA Fashion Department, click here: Fashion Department

Day Five, Cinque Terre

This gallery contains 1 photo.

Wow, what an amazing day at Cinque Terre! It was such an awesome day in Italy and I’m so proud that our group made it there and back in one piece! We had an early start to our morning as … Continue reading →

My Summer Abroad

It has always been a dream of mine to travel internationally and the time has finally come! My journey began with taking two planes just to get to Atlanta! I don’t think I have ever been more stressed yet excited for something at the same time. After finally arriving at the Atlanta airport, I met up with 17 other girls who would accompany me on every step of the way on my journey! I can already tell I am making friendships that will last a lifetime!

Never having flown internationally before caused the butterflies to consume my stomach! However I was very excited I got to sit next to one of my new roommates, Alex.

The plane boarded quite quickly and it was CIAO AMERICA!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stay tuned,

Alexis Carter