Cristina Vergano
Artist Cristina Vergano depicts wildlife locked in evolutionary struggles for primacy and reproduction. She freely mixes techniques that span from oil painting to collage, and often paints on unexpected found objects. Classical Latin quotes float through her paintings, shedding further meaning and lending a graphic, very contemporary dimension to this new body of work. The result is strong and original, sui generis.
Cristina Vergano explains her unforgettable animal imagery as the metaphor for life:
“...Struggle, fascination, aggression and longing are present, in different combinations, in each painting's entanglement or standstill...
Aggression and sex drive, the cornerstones of evolutionary survival, often blend together.
...In addition to this Darwinian/Freudian dimension, "The Laws of Attraction” touches on a more existential note: each one of us is a warrior, each is a hero, struggling against the forces that confront us. In this sense, this cycle of paintings is my very personal interpretation of the early Romantic concept of ‘Sturm und Drang’: life as a turbulent, heroic struggle against the forces that confront us.
The fight is a vital expression of passion, the essence of life itself.”
Cristina Vergano (1960) is a fine artist born and raised in Italy, presently living and working in New York City. Her classical, academic painting style offsets the highly imaginative content of her work. A playful, surreal vein runs through the artist’s work, along with a subtle feminist concern and a wink to Pop art. Vergano’s paintings are populated with human-animal hybrid creatures, Muslim women in lingerie, flying saucers, word games, and amused references to Ingres, Picasso, Lichtenstein, and other masters, both old and modern.
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