By Mark Jenkins, The Washington Post
One major subset of modernist art is known for clean lines, elementary forms and pristine surfaces. Everything indirect, inessential and, above all, historical has been stripped away. But there’s a charm to well-used old things, with their patinas, blemishes and hidden strata. Such aspects can be emulated, and even simulated. Three local artists — Cianne Fragione, Julie Wolfe and Khanh H. Le — are doing that in various ways in current shows.
Of the trio, Fragione comes closest to remaking an Old World. The pictures in “Gate to the Sea,” her exhibit at Gallery Neptune & Brown, resemble the weathered surfaces of centuries-old walls, tinged by weather and time. Yet the artist doesn’t literally mimic such facades. Combining painting, drawing and collage, Fragione makes contemporary abstractions that feel rooted in the past.
The gate the artist unlocks leads to the Ionian Sea in the vicinity of Sicily, her family’s ancestral homeland. She employs the hues of clay, rock and stone, sometimes set off by patches of blue that could represent sea, sky or both. (Green features only rarely.) Patterns in black suggest wrought-iron railings, while scratched-away pigment hints at damaged frescoes.
Fragione also includes other elements that indicate a human presence, such as scraps of women’s clothing (a tribute to her dressmaking grandmother) and bits of penciled text, often crossed out. Scars that suggest natural attrition are actually made by the artist, whose gestures drew from her background as a dancer. However excavated Fragione’s paintings and prints may appear, the traces she leaves are more personal than archaeological.