Artist Statement
Maybe inherited from the theater, I hold a strong physical relation to painting — as a movement, a presence, and a dance. It is a process-oriented work. I live painting as a sensory and sensual activity. It is this sensuality that leads me to explore with different textures. It is reaching out to another body —finding or missing an encounter, a response, a resistance.
Painting is my reality away from reality, away from fixed categories, from what we are used to see or what we should be seeing. It is what takes me closer to the ephemeral in being, in a visceral way. It is my escape in a space outside-of-concepts, and yet holds a reflection about time and becoming. Is this a contradiction? Maybe it is, and maybe this is what it makes all the more of a fascinating process.
Nothing is planned in my work. I need to be in this space where anything can happen, colors appear, colors disappear. It could be thought as a form of madness and in a sense it is. It is an abundance, an exceeding, a too much and too little. Maybe because of that, this is my way of celebrating life, and that’s the closest I can get to beauty.
Artist Biography
Alessandra Stradella is an Italian artist, born and raised in Venice, living between Europe and the USA, and currently based in Philadelphia where she works as Philosophy Professor. Her grandfather, Bepi (Giuseppe) Marino, was a painter, of a post-impressionist school.
In 1990, while completing her studies in Philosophy at the University of Ca’ Foscari (Venice), she came across the theatre and started her theatrical studies and professional career as an actress in the theatre and cinema (1990-2000).
In 2000, she moved to the States, where she earned a M.A. in Philosophy at Georgia State University (2002), and a Ph.D. in Philosophy at Emory University (2008), with a specialization in Philosophy of Art and Aesthetics. It was the experience of the theatre that led her toward Philosophy of Art. And Philosophy of Art, the study of Action Painting in particular, brought her to painting, and back to her grandfather.
She works in abstraction, mainly using acrylic, graphite, charcoal, and pencils on paper, canvas, and panel of various scales. Although she loves abstraction as an outside-of-concepts realm, it is also true that philosophy informs her artistic search.
Education
2008
Emory University, Atlanta, GA, Ph.D. in Philosophy, with a specialization in Philosophy of Art and Aesthetics
2002
Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA, M.A. in Philosophy
Continuing Education
2020-21
PAFA, Philadelphia, PA
2018-Present
Fleisher Art Memorial, Philadelphia, PA
2020
Workshop: Together Apart, A Shelter for ArtisticPractices, Proyecto ‘Ace, Buenos Aires, Argentina
2020
Workshop: Summer Studio/Critique, organized by PAFA,Pennsylvania Academia of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA
2020
Workshop: Work in Progress, workshop of specializationfor artists, organized by R.A.R.O. Madrid, Spain
Awards & Honors
2019
Abstract Painting Award, Third Prize, Annual Exhibition, Fleisher Art Memorial, Philadelphia, PA
Residencies
2022/23 (scheduled)
R.A.R.O Madrid, Spain
Casa Tugumerche, Canary Islands
2021
The Mudhouse Residency, Agios Ioannis, Crete
2019
Joya AiR, Velez Rubio, Almeria, Spain
Professional Experience
2013-Present
Community College of Philadelphia, Professor of Philosophy of Art and Aesthetics
2008-2013
SUNY Oneonta, Oneonta, NY, Professor of Philosophy or Art and Aesthetics
1995-2000
Professional Acting, Italy.
Affiliations
Member, Da Vinci Art Alliance, Philadelphia, PA
Member, Fleisher Art Memorial, Philadelphia, PA
Publications
“Performance Art and the Seduction of Theatricality,” Philosophy Study, 2(3), 2012, 163-171.
“The Fiction of the Standard of Taste: David Hume on the Social Constitution of Beauty,” The Journal of Aesthetic Education, 46(4), 2012, 32-47.
“On Grief: An Aesthetic Defense,” Philosophical Practice, 6(2), 2011, 803-810.
“The Dramatic Nature of Our Selves: David Hume and the Theatre Metaphor,” Literature and Aesthetics, 20(2), 2010, 154-167.
