Francesca DiMattio (born 1981) is an American artist born and based in New York City. She makes paintings and ceramic sculpture that weave elements using architectural, design, cultural and historical references.
Life
DiMattio grew up in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York City. Her mother was a college counselor and ceramist and her father was a vision scientist in the Physiology Dept. at NYU Medical Center. She attended NYC Public schools including the Lab School and LaGuardia High School of Music and Art graduating in 1999. She received her BFA from the Cooper Union in 2003 and her MFA from Columbia University of the Arts in 2005. She lives and works in New York City and Hillsdale, NY.
Career
Francesca DiMattio (born 1981) is an American artist born and based in New York City. She makes paintings that weave spaces using architectural, cultural and historical references. Patterns, textures and imagery combine to forge a logical cohesion from apparently disparate and chaotic elements. Large mural works on canvas have been displayed in the Saatchi Gallery in London, Locust Projects in Miami, Salon 94 Bowery in NYC and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston.
In recent solo shows (2014-8) in New York City and London she has introduced ceramic sculpture that aspires to the monumental via a feminine strength and whimsy. DiMattio fractures and reconfigures a wide array of references including art history, children’s books, cartoons, pop culture, and craft. Though elements seem ready-made, she, in fact, sculpts and glazes everything by hand. Her sculptures are complex and multifaceted—each angle revealing seemingly endless experimentations in ceramic and glazing techniques. Throughout each assemblage, DiMattio’s layering and fragmentation maps a crucial dialogue between cultures and styles, pointing to the plasticity of representation. Through shifts in scale, elements that are typically accents become primary. Things do not behave as expected. Tiny figurines appear over scaled, floral motifs become viral, and torsos morph from flora and fauna. Through painting and the hybridization of art and craft she has introduced a dialogue with the past that has enlivened the contemporary world art scene.
Her ceramic sculptures include monumental candelabras heavy with historical references suggesting the weight of ceramic styles on chaotic post-modern lighting and living. Her totems reference Greek Caryatids carried into a present rethinking of the weight women bear today.A large monstrous 9-foot tall piece, She-Wolf (2018), evokes Yeats’, The Second Coming with its ending …” And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”