Raffaella Corcione: Dialogues and Silhouettes
Lina Hargrett
Raffaella Corcione, from her new series, "Cosmic Dance."
Influenced by much theological study, numerous journeys to India and in depth research into Eastern philosophy, Raffaella Corcione has been continuously developing her artwork. Predominantly defined by its experimental elements and variety, Corcione’s works explore bright colors, abstract forms and human figures; Corcione also plays with these elements in her sculptural works.
As her canvasses are loud with bright colors, they are set in contrast to the dark, silhouetted human figures, printed in repeated patterns on top of the screaming, vivid backdrops; the power of these works rests in this contrast of layers.
Although the two layers rest at opposite ends of a spectrum of color, they have a unifying theme, an interweaving thread: one cannot exist without it’s opposite, it’s "other half;" they are defined by their sense of opposition. In order to fully appreciate the dark, one has to see the light. Corcione uses the male and female figures as icons in her work–linked together at the hips, yet facing opposite directions. They too exist in the push-pull of contrast; they are inextricably linked as one cannot procreate, exist, without the other. Raffaella does well to highlight this in her work with trails of glitter meandering along canvas, veining body parts of the silhouettes in its trail. In this way, the fluorescent background seeps through into the whole picture; the two, separate layers of the painting become ineluctably connected; they cannot be parsed. Corcione’s images portray our world as made up of contrasting entities that cannot exist without one another. That, to be "an opposite" predisposes the individual into a state of co-existence.
Contrasts and opposites have been very commonplace in her work, and now Raffaella culminates her efforts with "Cosmic Dance"–a series of paintings which reflect a personal journey as well as an artistic one: resolving inner conflicts and contrasts to help create a final, complete and unified "self."
