Revealing Venice

I have been fortunate to visit Venice six times and it has always called to me to explore further. Venice is like that, it has an intense lingering atmosphere that’s hard to ignore.

The future of Venice looks and feels very sad to me. The situation there is probably beyond the tipping point of survival. I long for it to be different. When Leo and I went on a six week self-directed residency in April and May, we wanted to find out more. We approached Venetians from a variety of professions to gather their feelings about Venice and its lagoon.

In this exhibit I am showing pieces of what I collected from people and what I responded to when I was there. Two years ago I began working with the symbols of a gondola made of lace – two favorite symbols of Venice with a guiding question, how does a gondola of lace represent the idea of fragility?   Now it was time to go out and investigate my premise.

Every day I would go out and sketch. This is my usual practice. This year I changed my approach to drawing and focused on the patterns and rhythms I found in the water, the buildings and the clouds. Leo and I also visited amazing palazzi, elaborate churches, the Biennale and associated exhibits that were inspirational and often jaw dropping experiences. But my residency was based on making human connections.

To my amazement, the 45 people I interviewed were open to talking with me about the theme of fragility and the way the gondola and lace are regarded today. It was not a time of art making but of listening.

This is the most intense and rewarding of any art project I have ever created. It has the energy and spirit of not only Venice, it’s populace and delicate environment but also of the world in danger with great losses ahead. And wrapped into this is also my own fragility at my stage of life. It is also a lens I can use to open more creative paths.  I feel the urgency to keep going as I see myself connected to the story that Venice offers all of us.

Jennifer Ewing   •  August 2024