STATEMENT

           As an artist I am interested in giving form to present sense impressions. Constantly in the middle—between daughter and wife; between wife and mother; between mother and grandmother—I feel strongly connected to the archetypal. Multiplicity broadens the experience and enriches the context for intensity and relevant work. My roots in figurative painting foreshadow the torrent of flesh, or implied flesh. Marks are intuitive and reactive, entirely feminine.

            Process is critical. The complexity and wholeness of any intimate experience does not exist in a vacuum. Collective voices of communities past and present are reflected in the less than pristine treatment of surface. I flip through magazines, photographs, and drawings. Spontaneous choices of images are pressed into wet gesso then peeled off the canvas just before drying completely. What is left behind is reversed images and text—a somewhat cryptic message. The narrative possibilities increase, but ultimately, I choose which messages get buried under glazes of oil paint and which have a voice.

            I think about my daughter going through puberty, my wife wanting to get pregnant, my dying grandmother. Voluminous shapes shift and move. I am met with volume, but is it drape or skin? Some are bundles—full, heavy, swelling, and fecund. Some appear to be writhing and struggling while others appear to be clenched and steadfast. Soft, feminine folds are having conversations or arguments with the images, text, and previous marks on the canvas. A shift in some element within the painting reflects a mood change or some clash of thought or feeling. A painting is resolved when I can say, “this is what discovering, or waiting, or leaving feels and looks like.”

Perri Neri

PERRI NERI
Brooklyn, NY

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2009	“Three Artists: Rob Bovarnick, Chalet Comellas, Perri Neri” Scarfone Hartley Gallery, Tampa, FL
2007	PERRINERI , Solo Thesis Exhibition, Steuben Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
2005 - 2007	Pratt MFA Group Shows , Pratt, Brooklyn, NY
2004	“Exit Show” , Scarfone-Hartley Gallery, Tampa, FL
	Emerging Artist , Solo Show, Tampa Museum of Art, Tampa, FL
2003	“All Florida Show” , Juried Group Show, The Centre Gallery, St. Petersburg, FL, Award of Distinction
2002	“Figurative Elements” , Juried Group Show, The Arts Center, St. Petersburg, FL, Award of Excellence
2001	“The Really Big Show” , Invitational Group Show, Tampa Museum of Art, Tampa, FL
	“Confessions” , Invitational Group Show, Hyde Park Fine Arts, Tampa, FL
1998	“The Michelangelo Project” , Solo Exhibition, Scalzo Gallery, Belleair, FL, 1998
	Orlando Museum Biennial , Juried Group Show, Orlando Museum of   Art, Orlando, FL
1993	Lakeland Museum Biennial ,   Juried Group Show, Lakeland Museum   of Art, Lakeland, FL
1992	”Heaven and Hell” , solo Exhibition, 18-Thirteen Gallery, Tampa, FL
	“Appendages” ,   The Arts Center, St. Petersburg, FL
GALLERY MEMBERSHIP / AWARDS
2010	Ceres Gallery, New York City – Full Membership
2004	Tampa Museum of Art, Tampa, FL – Emerging Artist Award
2002	Centre Gallery, St. Petersburg, FL – All Florida Show Award of Distinction
	The Arts Center, St. Petersburg, FL – Figurative Elements Award of Excellence
REVIEWS / PUBLICATIONS
	Studio Visit Magazine, Spring 2010 Catalog for Three Artists: Rob Bovarnick, Chalet Comellas, Perri Neri , Scarfone-Hartley Gallery, Tampa, FL. Prattfolio. “Basic Training: The Human Form”.   2007   Adrienne Gvongy St. Petersburg Times , “The Body Eclectic”. October 2002   Lennie Bennett Tampa Bay Magazine , “Classic Style, Modern Thoughts”, September 1998 Aaron Fodiman Event Magazine , “The Italians at Scalzo Gallery”. February 1998 Susan Clayton Creative Loafing , “Gutsy Yuck”. December, 1992   Susanne Nielson

Back to top