Nineteenth century shipwrecks & flying bananas? Expect the unexpected as artist & printmaker Allison Bianco layers Rhode Island’s actual topography and coastal history with neon colors and whimsical humor. The local artist explores the unreliable nature of memory using a combination of screen printing with copper etching called intaglio. We follow her fascinating process every step of the way in “Allison Bianco: Imagining the Storm” on “ART Inc.”
An interview with Cade Tompkins, Gallery Director:
Recently, “ART Inc.” producer Mary Steele spoke with Bianco’s gallerist to learn more about the artist’s professional and creative evolution.Here are excerpts from that conversation with Cade Tompkins, Gallery Director at Cade Tompkins Projects in Providence.
My job is to make sure that I am vetting all the work that comes into my gallery that I then in turn have my clients consider for acquisition. And I enjoy both sides of what I do, which is knowing the artist and working with the artist and knowing the client and working with the client and putting them together.
Allison Bianco started working for my gallery as a gallery associate, which often happens because artists have double lives. They sometimes teach and make their art, and sometimes they work in galleries and make their art to sustain their art making practice.
I liked her work very much, especially the screen printing, what she was doing at that time of the sinking ships. And there was a great amount of humor and fun in them, but also a huge amount of painterly quality to the screen printing. Unlike screen prints that you think of—Andy Warhol or Bridget Riley—they were not straight lines and stuck in one position. The screen printing was soft and elusive and beautifully done.
She made a print called The Sinking of Matunuck. And when it came into the gallery, I was undone. I thought, this is it. This is an amazing work. And she had taken what she’d already known with the screen prints and then added etching. And I was blown away. I thought, wow, this is really a masterpiece. And I said, “Well, I’d like to represent you now.” Then she had a big show at the print center in Philadelphia and everything took off from there.
I have had clients from Alaska and California and the middle of the country buying her work and appreciating it for many, many reasons. So it has a universal reach in it. And even though topographically, it’s our scene, it seems to be everybody’s scene. And then museum acquisitions came along. So the MFA Boston owns two pieces. Yale University Art Gallery actually acquired The Sinking of Matunuck. and other wonderful print collections. So it’s very, very exciting to work with an artist and get their work into museums.
