In Rite, Alessandra Maria Conjures the Dark Magic of the Imagination
Galerie Fledermaus is pleased to announce Rite, an exhibition of new works by Alessandra Maria. The collection of works on paper will be Maria’s first solo show since debuting her work in 2014.
Utilizing a limited palette of graphite, gold leaf, and ink, Maria displays a prodigious command of craft. Her work succeeds in evoking symbolist undertones while also transcending tradition to gesture toward something entirely new.
Exploring the space between dreams and reality, between tradition and heresy, Rite is an incantation, a chant calling forth truths from a world shrouded in mystery and mist. The result is the female form elevated to an iconography unto itself, inhabiting worlds of myth and magic.
Rite is not meant to be viewed as a collection of separate works, but rather as illustrations for a sacred text. Maria has created a world – a society, bound by ritual and belief, in which all elements interconnect. Her subjects are both a celebration and a subversion of the sacred feminine; primal demigoddesses of the dusk, of the space between worlds.
For Maria, Rite represents a homecoming of sorts. A return to the worldbuilding of her youth when her unencumbered imagination conjured mysterious realms. She began drawing as a means of capturing these worlds of witches and goddesses, giving form to the contents of her dreams. In that way Rite is also a map, the work of a cartographer tracing the way back to where her world began.
Rite will be on exhibit from November 4 – December 3, 2022, at Galerie Fledermaus, 2753 West Fullerton Avenue, Chicago, Illinois. The show will open with an artist reception on November 4 from 5:00 p.m. – 8 p.m.
Exhibition hours will be every Saturday, 10:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m. or by appointment.
View the show catalog:
