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Pattern Repetition Laurence Levey
Margaret Lanzetta’s art uncovers, translates and replicates the pulse and spirit underlying both the visible artifacts of human culture, such as regional architecture, and the less obvious, such as commonalities in the practices of different religious traditions. An upcoming exhibition, Pet the Pretty Tiger, Works 19902010, at the Cantor Gallery at Holy Cross College, gives viewers the chance to observe thematic recurrences and elaborations in the artist’s work over the past 20 years.
time all but ruled Indian culture and commerce, investigates such phenomena as meditative practice and Islamic architecture. Lanzetta notes “the use of pattern to celebrate the spiritual” in Islam, likening the practice to “repeating a mantra or saying a rosary” in other religions. In this series of paintings, which mirrors the culture that inspired it, “intense colors reference spiritual experience.” Lanzetta’s newest series of paintings, “American Time,” stemming from a Ucross Foundation Residency in Wyoming earlier this year, takes up “motifs derived from photographs of architectural details” and reflects the “horizonless landscapes and enormous open space” of the American West. All of Lanzetta’s work features repetition, both of imagery or pattern within each painting, and in each series of
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The Cantor Gallery offers four or five exhibits per academic year, often in coordination with programs and departments on campus, as well as
alumni-related shows during the summer. Hankins says the challenge for this show was to use the entirety of the gallery’s 1,800 square feet to present Lanzetta’s work in “a coherent and selective way,” to “show the evolution of the thought processes of the artist.” He points out that Lanzetta’s work has been “informed by periods of international study,” during which she’s had “the chance to look at and absorb visual culture in foreign locations.” Lanzetta, a 1979 Holy Cross alumna, received this opportunity for international exploration courtesy of a Fulbright Senior Research Grant, which allowed her to spend much of 2007 and 2008 in India and Syria. The series, which emerged from that time of study, “Company Paintings,” is an allusion to the East India Company, which at one
paintings as a whole. Her work might be said to straddle the worlds of abstract art and graphic design. Where Andy Warhol churned out representations of soup cans and pop icons, the cultural ephemera of his day, Lanzetta creates representations of the spiritual and protocultural themes and patterns, which give rise to and manifest themselves in our experience of different cultural traditions. She says she has always been interested in “the intersection of nature and industry,” and in “incorporating different cultural references.” She describes her work as “a distillation of experiences I have while not in the studio.” Her works have a mesmerizing, galvanic quality, with their simultaneous rendering of the familiar and the arcane, in endlessly repeating, yet endlessly varying incarnations. Margaret Lanzetta: Pet the Pretty Tiger; Works 1990-2010. Cantor Gallery, O’Kane Hall, College of the Holy Cross. October 21-December 15. Opening Reception: October 21, 5-6:30 p.m. 508-793-3356 or holycross.edu/cantorartgallery.
Featuring... • Over 60 Craft Fair & Farmers Market booths
Oct. 23-24 10 am to 5 pm
• Family Entertainment • Birds of Prey Show by The Raptor Project
Celtic
Celebration Live Entertainment with Mac Talla Mor Band & the Flying Irish Dance Troupe
Great New England BBQ Festival To Benefit The Greg Hill Foundation ic Live Mus with Brian Richards
• The Monkey Man • Chainsaw Carving Demonstrations • Scenic Foliage SkyRides to the Summit • Mountainside Barbecue • Seasonal Ales in the Beer Tent
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Just off Rt. 140 in Princeton, MA! (978) 464-2300 (800) SKI-1234 www.wachusett.com OCTOBER 21, 2010 • WORCESTERMAG.COM
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