Beauty in Impermanence

(9/21/2010)

Born and raised in Los Angeles, Joanna Cutri is clearly a nomad aware that all things are in motion and ultimately finite. After years of travel and study in Cleveland, Georgia, New York and Italy - she settled on Bali because she was "inspired by nature and the rich artistic lifestyle of the Balinese."

While technically a figurative artist, her rich and complex canvasses can best be described as subconscious tapestries. While ultimately feminine, they are never overly sweet or decorative. Her figures are most often phantom-like silhouettes that simultaneously jump out and recede into multiple layers of color, textures, patterns, words and series of enigmatic numbers.

Cutri's figures are studies in passion and pathos. As seen in "Sisters," a stunning composition of rainbow-hued women standing in a row against an opaque gray textured background; female intuition reigns supreme. Using multiple mediums including collage, she evokes the layers seen on old Italian walls and frescoes. The residual influence of her Italian experience and ancient Rome is in the classical profile of "Lucky 13" and the nude back of "Carolyn."

Tactile sensuality is also an important element of her oeuvre. In 'Waking Up to the Space Between" the well curved lines of a beautiful reclining nude is draped with a transparent lacy cloth. Turquoise she floats against a swirling background of yellow, scribbled words and cut off stenciled words 'Benedetti.' The mystery of the enigmatic image does not create angst but rather a dream-like state. As the title of her show implies beauty is exquisite but so too impermanent. In the eyes of the visionary surrealist Antonin Artaud this impermanence was the heart of the greatest creations of humans and nature. Like the exotic, perfumed flowers of the archaic Kumbasari that bloom rarely and only at midnight under the light of the Full Moon, only to perish before the light of dawn, destruction is the inevitable consequence of beauty. It is a dangerous theme to capture and one in which Cutri seemingly succeeds without effort.



Beauty in Impermanence

An Exhibition of Paintings by Joanna Cutri

Ganesha Hallery at the Four Seasons Resort Bali at Jimbaran Bay

November 5 – December 6, 2010

Open Daily



For more information telephone ++62-(0)361-701010