DUXBURY, Mass. — In 2003, Passages 2 received “Directors’ Choice of Outstanding Painting” at the Cambridge Art Association. Passages, Ocean to Bay 1 won “Artist of the Year, Painting” at the Cambridge Art Association Members’ Prize Show in 2005 and was selected “Best Cape Cod Landscape” at the Cape Cod Art Association in 2007. Today, painter and designer Robert Cipriani (www.robertcipriani.com) continues to evolve his award-winning “Passages” paintings. The series, along with other canvasses from his body of work, will be included in two upcoming exhibitions, the artist announces.
The first event, hosted by L’attitude Gallery on Newbury Street in Boston, Mass., runs from May 15 through July 6, 2008. Titled “Arcs and Angles,” the show features Cipriani’s paintings, many of them new “Passages,” along with sculptures by Rob Lorenson. An opening reception will be held May 17 from 4:00 to 7:00 p.m. The Cape Cod Museum of Art in Dennis, Mass., will host a solo exhibition of the painter’s work from May 1 to June 7, 2009.
Cipriani’s stylized “Passages” landscapes interweave past, present, and future, bringing together glimpses of life, places, and memories in one place-in one moment. Fragments of grasses, marshes, bays, beaches, mountains, and ocean blur and commingle with transcendent elements that exist in paint for the first time.
“When I work on this series, I am simultaneously immersed in thinking about the painting and the act of painting,” he says. “What I’m creating and the act of creating are so close together in time as to be almost simultaneous at some points.”
Using pumice, sand, heavy gel mediums, and varnishes, Cipriani builds texture upon texture. The top of a “Passages” painting is quite smooth. The surface gradually intensifies towards the bottom, which can be as thick and sculptural as stone or stucco.
To view paintings in Cipriani’s “Passages” series, visit http://www.robertcipriani.com/montage.html and click through pages 1, 5, and 6. For more information on the painter and his body of work, visit www.robertcipriani.com.
About Robert Cipriani
A graduate of Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), Cipriani is both a professional artist and a noted graphic designer. He has won over 800 regional, national, and international design awards. His paintings are represented by numerous galleries and have garnered a variety of acclaim, including an “Artist of the Year, Painting” designation from the Cambridge Art Association and the “Directors’ Choice: Best Cape Cod Landscape” award at the 2007 Juried All Cape Cod Show. In May 2009, his paintings will be featured in a solo exhibition, curated by Exhibitions Curator Michael Giaquinto, at the Cape Cod Museum of Art in Dennis.
