Opening Reception: Thursday, July 3, 6-8 PM
Nicholas Metivier Gallery is pleased to announce Matera, an exhibition of paintings by Linda Martinello. The exhibition will open on June 7th and run until June 30th with an opening reception on June 7th. This is Martinello’s first solo exhibition at the gallery.
Linda Martinello’s energetic and visceral landscapes use memory as a tool to draw upon both specific and fabricated histories. Her fascination with this subject evolved from a personal investigation into her Mexican and Italian heritage. Martinello’s work is based on her travel experiences. She spends months in foreign cities, researching in the way of making observational drawings, notes and videos. She revisits this gathered material back at her studio to create works that combine painting, drawing and more recently, collage. While her expressive drawing loosely describes architectural and geographical details, an intuitive use of colour and gesture evoke the feeling of a particular place.
In 2016, Martinello travelled to Matera, an ancient city located in the remote Southern region of Basilicata, Italy. This site lies within a small canyon and is filled with labyrinth-like passages and cave dwelling districts. It is Italy’s earliest inhabited city and in 1993 was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Martinello was drawn to Matera because of its extraordinary architecture as well as its tumultuous history – once known as “the shame of Italy” for its poverty and crime, it was recently awarded the title of the 2019 European Capital of Culture. Martinello works on drafting film, a translucent material that she layers and cuts to reveal the painting beneath. Her tactile surfaces and ghostly underlying images convey the experience of Matera in a way that is unique and remarkably authentic.
Linda Martinello completed her MFA at the University of Waterloo and received an honors BA from the University of Toronto. Her work is included in many prominent private, public and corporate collections including BMO Financial Group, TD Bank and Telus. She is the recipient of several awards and research grants including SSHRC Graduate Research Scholarship and University of Waterloo President’s Graduate Scholarship.
