Grace DeGennaro: "Rivers" 2008

“…even in a secular culture, the best of it (art) has always been connected to the sacred: sacred as in setting aside and island in time for the imagination to recreate itself, sacred as in making space for an antidote to the distraction and degradation of the everyday.”

Carol Armstrong

Rivers is the title of my current series of paintings and works on paper.  Many of the works feature a single and centrally positioned curved form that represents a river. The river symbolizes the passage of life, creative power and a place of ritual ablution and purification. The movement of the river image off the top and bottom of the support evokes opposing directions and dualities: north and south, the spiritual and the earthly, heaven and hell.

Additional symbolic images presented in this series include the diamond and the vessel. Jewels symbolize hidden treasures of knowledge or truth. The cutting of precious stones signifies the soul being shaped from the rough, dark stone into the jewel, symmetrical and reflecting divine light. Diamonds are traditionally associated with durability, incorruptibility and constancy. Vessels are a universal feminine symbol and represent fertility and inwardness. The vessel is also a container of material to be transformed.

I have always been drawn to symbolism, metaphor and narrative. My studio practice is one of identifying and depicting images that are resonant with meaning. I juxtapose these iconic images to communicate the themes of ritual, growth, duality and the passage of time. 

Grace DeGennaro: "Beaded" 2006

I am interested in the power of traditional symbols and sacred geometry to communicate ideas that lie beyond the limitations of language and culture. My current work is comprised of a series of large works on paper in gouache and watercolor and paintings in oil on linen.

My practice is one of identifying, researching and depicting symbols that are both iconic and numinous. Through research the significance of an image in various cultures is revealed, providing meaning and context for my work. A list of the symbols appearing in my recent paintings includes: cubes, diamonds, tongues, pyramids, fountains, rivers and the vesica piscis.

On a ground of transparent color the images are rendered through a deliberate accretion of dots and beads based on the idea of gnomic expansion. This labor- intensive working process reflects and supports the recurrent themes of ritual, memory, growth and the passage of time. 

My paintings reference work utilizing an abstract, non-linear perspective such as Byzantine mosaics, Australian Aboriginal painting and Indian Tantra drawings. I am compelled by the spiritual rather than the physical geometry of space.