On view from October 7-28, 2022

Wilmington, Del. (October 3, 2022) – The Delaware Division of the Arts’ Mezzanine Gallery presents 2022 DDOA Individual Artist Fellow Joseph Barbaccia’s exhibition, Polymer Paintings, running October 7-28, 2022. Guests are invited to attend a Meet-the-Artist Reception on Friday, October 7, from 5:00-7:00 p.m.

All his life, Joseph Barbaccia has been inspired by color and form. He was drawn to their motivating force even before his artistic inclinations and aspirations were clear to him. There were no artists among his extended family or their friends, but “at church on Sundays, I remember always wanting to sit in a pew the had a stained-glass window at the end in order to enjoy the colors close up,” as he studied the statues and the bas-reliefs on the walls.

Barbaccia was born in Philadelphia, but when he was a toddler, the family moved to rural New Jersey. He began drawing in earnest when he was six, at first to capture the attention of his second-grade teacher, whom he admired. But soon his family began to take notice. “Since then, except for six months in 1979 when I took a motorcycle trip [out west], I never stopped making images.” After taking classes at Philadelphia’s Tyler School of Fine Arts, Barbaccia traveled through the United States and the South Pacific, drawing and painting in a “mostly representational style.” In 1996 he settled in Potomac Falls, Virginia, where over the next two decades his experiments with encaustics, freestanding sculpture, and mixed media gained increasing attention and recognition.

The prolific artist has exhibited widely – over 35 group shows and 10 solo exhibitions – in galleries and major venues throughout the East Coast and the mid-Atlantic, including the Greater Reston Art Center, Delaware Contemporary, Rehoboth Art League, and Washington’s Corcoran Gallery. He’s been the subject of dozens of articles and reviews, both as an artist and as an illustrator with three published children’s picture books (and a fourth underway).

Barbaccia had always had a large studio, but in 2018 he and his wife (also an artist) moved to Georgetown, Delaware, where his workspace was smaller. Realizing “I would have to change my materials and methods to accommodate the new reality,” he landed on polymer clay as “the perfect choice.” The material – with its transparency and a full color spectrum – allows him to create in both two and three dimensions. It led Barbaccia in a new direction. “Approximately 90% of the artists creating with polymer clay create jewelry. I thought the time was right to expand its visual range.”

As well as inspiring Barbaccia, working with polymer clay has challenges. Using atypical art materials, “I sometimes come up against limiting parameters in applications to shows or competitions . . . [including] a list of accepted materials that doesn’t include polymer clay.” And the pandemic has led to a scarcity of his chosen material. But he continues to push against these and other constraints and revels in “showing and sharing my work.”

The Mezzanine Gallery, open weekdays from 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., is located on the second floor of the Carvel State Office Building, 820 N. French Street, Wilmington.

Image: “Avatar,” 2021, polymer clay, 20 x 14 x .1 inches

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Contact: Andrew Truscott, Program Officer, Marketing and Communications

302-577-8280, andrew.truscott@delaware.gov

The Delaware Division of the Arts, a branch of the Delaware Department of State, is dedicated to cultivating and supporting the arts to enhance the quality of life for all Delawareans. Together with its advisory body, the Delaware State Arts Council, the Division administers grants and programs that support arts programming, educate the public, increase awareness of the arts, and integrate the arts into all facets of Delaware life. For more information about the Delaware Division of the Arts, visit arts.delaware.gov or call 302-577-8278.

On view from September 2-23, 2022

Wilmington, Del. (August 24, 2022) – The Delaware Division of the Arts’ Mezzanine Gallery presents 2022 DDOA Individual Artist Fellow Kiara Florez’s exhibition, Inner Reflections, running September 2-23, 2022. Guests are invited to attend a Meet-the-Artist Reception on Friday, September 9, from 5:00-7:00 p.m.

Painter Kiara Florez was always involved in “artistic endeavors.” As a child she wanted to be a writer, “creating characters and worlds that didn’t exist” and writing stories while drawing her ideas. It was in high school – at age 16 – that Florez turned seriously to visual art. As she learned the fundamentals and explored a variety of media, she came to painting and discovered her style and artistic process. Her works, primarily paint on canvases, use acrylics to mix the primary colors together. She uses only one paintbrush as she lets the painting come to life through an intuitive process. “I often meditate to music or be surrounded by nature to find a visual for the messages and/or emotions I am trying to convey,” says Florez. “My progression of each work is loosely based on jumbles of my thoughts and feelings at the time, so there are moments where the painting can take an unexpected turn. In the end, there is always a personal and spiritual message within each work in this series.”

Based on intuition, her works begin with a faint idea of “how I want the painting to come to life.” But that process is often challenging. Since a work in progress can “change form and go in any direction it pleases,” it can require her to overpaint or even begin again. But while each work springs from a personal message, she leaves any “interpretation and analysis” up to her viewers and is especially gratified when her paintings “speak not just to the mind, but to the soul as well.”

A recent graduate of Delaware State University with a B.A. in studio art, Florez has already been seen in several exhibitions, was the Delaware winner of the 2017 Doodle4Google competition, and has had her work on view at the U.S. Capitol. Her imaginative paintings magically merge the figurative and the abstract, always informed by “nature, music, all forms of art, and dreams.”

The collection that garnered her the Division’s Fellowship is a series of acrylic paintings on canvas, colorful narratives that “explore spiritual thinking and imaginative worlds, using bold colors and wavy lines.” Both figural and abstract, her works are populated with exaggerated shapes in a vibrant color palette, a “loose interpretation of the human figure and nature” that carry Florez’ personal, spiritual messages.

Florez describes her inspiration as an artist: “This collection of paintings explores spiritual thinking and imaginative worlds, using bold colors and wavy lines to express those concepts. I let the colors connect with each other and let them dance across the canvas. The forms and shapes are highly exaggerated and appear in abstract form. Many of my works often human-like beings interacting with landscapes or other beings. The figures may not always have facial or a full body. They may be placed above a natural landscape, floating above mountains or standing tall in the sky. I create openly interpretive paintings for viewers even if there is a personal meaning behind it.” 

The Mezzanine Gallery, open weekdays from 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., is located on the second floor of the Carvel State Office Building, 820 N. French Street, Wilmington.

Image: “Stuck in a Daze” (2021) Acrylic painting, 30x40in

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Contact: Andrew Truscott, Program Officer, Marketing and Communications

302-577-8280, andrew.truscott@delaware.gov

The Delaware Division of the Arts, a branch of the Delaware Department of State, is dedicated to cultivating and supporting the arts to enhance the quality of life for all Delawareans. Together with its advisory body, the Delaware State Arts Council, the Division administers grants and programs that support arts programming, educate the public, increase awareness of the arts, and integrate the arts into all facets of Delaware life. For more information about the Delaware Division of the Arts, visit arts.delaware.gov or call 302-577-8278.