Kaitlin Zorah McDonough

Blood-snake Pomegranate

THE 'RIDOTTO' at PALAZZO DANDOLO
presents CABINET #07:
Blood-snake Pomegranate
Kaitlin Zorah McDonough
curated by Matilde Dolcetti, coordination Déirdre Kelly
Venice, Italy
2023

At the invitation of Matilde Dolcetti for its 7th edition, CABINET hosts a solo exhibition of works by Kaitlin Zorah McDonough entitled Blood-snake Pomegranate.

This exhibition features shaped paintings and ten unique books created during and immediately following the artist’s recent travels to Pompeii and Paestum, Italy.

These works confront the archetypal imagery and forms of the serpent, the snail, the spiral, the shell as they weave with the artist’s ongoing interests in rhythm, sound, energy, and place. The paintings and books speak to the harmonics of how we move: internally and externally, seasonally and cyclically, accumulating and inflicting, receiving and transmitting.

The drawing and looking which took place in the Villa of the Mysteries (Pompeii, June 2023) was visioned by Dean Graham Nickson of the New York Studio School – who comments: “the volcanology of art is the eruption of experience” – and was made possible by the generosity of the Hohenberg Foundation and many friends in Italy and the United States.

CABINET is a project curated by Matilde Dolcetti, coordination Déirdre Kelly. Renowned artists are invited to make work for the 18th century cabinet and respond to the context of the Palazzo Dandolo following on the theme of the ‘ridotto’. In previous times some palaces in Venice opened rooms for musical and literary entertainment, as well as for gambling and courtesans. The term “Ridotto” was used for a wing of Palazzo Dandolo in San Moisè, near the theatre of the same name; opened to the public in 1638, this was the first gambling casino. That of Palazzo Dandolo became famous throughout Europe and was frequented by wealthy foreigners and personalities such as Giacomo Casanova. The seventeenth century Palazzo Dandolo at San Tomà, on the Grand Canal, belonged to another branch of the Dandolo family, at the beginning of the 1900’s it became the property of Pietro Stanislao Parisi and his heirs still live there. Several times hosting pavilions as part of the Venice Biennale, the “Ridotto” is now an Art Atelier, salon of the Scuola Internazionale di Grafica in Venice, home to other events and exhibitions.

photo credit (drawing from the Villa of the Mysteries): Alain Guariglia
painting Kaitlin Zorah McDonough: S.W., 2023, oil, collage, beads, acrylic, pencil on cardboard & panel, 18.5” X 12.5”
Blood-snake Pomegranate, installation Palazzo Dandolo Parisi, Venice, Italy Blood-snake Pomegranate, installation
Blood-snake Pomegranate, installati

Blood-snake Pomegranate

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