Maria Molteni
Image: on left, Xanayia McKinney, 2019 ArtLab Intern, on right, Helen Frankenthaler, 1956
Maria Molteni Boston, MA | sculpture, murals, installations
AB Exorcism! Applied Action Painting and Inverted Arenas
Maria Molteni and PlatteForum’s ArtLab Interns
Reception: 6-8pm, Thursday, March 7 - March 23, 2019
During her seven-week residency, Molteni has presented on many overlapping social justice and art historical movements, particularly the Post-war and Cold-war eras when Abstract Expressionism re-centered the focus of art world from Europe to the United States. Abstract Expressionism, also called AB EX or action painting championed individual, creative, emotional expression and often saw the final painted product as the mere residue of a process.
Staging both individualized and collective abstract drawing/painting exercises (named by Maria and the interns "AB Exorcism!”), PlatteForum’s ArtLab interns practiced ecstatic painting processes that engaged the whole space, inside a fabric-lined action painting arena for interns to freely test painting techniques and original fabricated tools.This painted fabric has been cut up and sewn into sports-wear garments, recalling the AB EX/paint-stroke pattern motifs found in 1980s & 90s athletic apparel. The final garment-paintings will reflect the aesthetic identity of the interns’ teams, and also reflect the spirit of DIY craft as a pushback on the global textile/sweatshop industry created by brands such as Nike.
The exhibition will feature these garment-paintings, found-object sculptures and residual artifacts from the interns' performative process. It will also include new works made my Maria during personal studio hours as she reflects on the interconnectedness of material culture, athletic and textile industries and global politics.Reflecting on her residency time, Maria states:
“It's been really nice to have a large, flexible space to work in. It's helped me to expand the scale of some work and shift my process between working with the ArtLab interns and by myself. As a teaching artist, I find the PlatteForum teens to be so creatively advanced and intellectually mature. I often work with a wide range of age groups, from very young children to college students, but here I can dive deeper into complex intellectual and emotional content with young people that I might save for the college level.”
About the Artist
Maria Molteni is a Boston-based multimedia artist, educator and organizer, originally from Nashville, TN. Having completed rigorous studies in drawing, painting and printmaking, her practice sprung from roots in observation and formalism. It has grown to incorporate performance, research, collaboration and social engagement. While interested in post-industrial popular culture, she remains critical of a polarized society that promotes consumerism and spectator-ship over participation. Molteni enjoys problem solving via traditional methods of production, introducing radical or absurdist designs as unifying, aesthetic solutions. She also takes interest in standardized systems that influence ritual in everyday functionality. From fiber to found-object sculpture, movement to publication, she employs tactile and tactical processes to explore contemporary art, craft, urban planning, sport, feminism, and spiritualism. In recent works, she playfully imagines being a PE coach at Black Mountain College.
Using grassroots & DIY creative projects as tools, Molteni's work has been replicated internationally by organizers and educators alike. In the last 2 years she’s worked with over 200 youth & teens from 12 Boston neighborhoods as an Artist in Residence for the MFA Boston & the City of Boston. Together they realized elaborate museum & public installations that address social justice in the context of community basketball and the global textile industry. The New Craft Artists in Action collective, which she found in 2010, was invited to share their work with the Congressional Maker Caucus on Capitol Hill in 2016. This past summer they traveled to Croatia to collaborate with Queer Sport, Split. Molteni has completed Fellowships at Vermont Studio Center (Johnson, VT), Elsewhere Living Museum (Greensboro, NC), Zamboanga Hace (Philippines), Mildred’s Lane (Beach Lake, PA), PS1 MoMA Studios (LIC, NY), the Berwick Research Institute's Bumpkin Island Art Encampment (Boston Harbor, MA), and sübSamsøn (Boston, MA). She has exhibited in many local and regional spaces- such as Space Gallery, Grin Gallery, Harvard’s Carpenter Center for Visual Arts, Fuller Craft Museum, ICA Boston- as well as nationally and internationally- at NGBK Gallery (Berlin), Global Committee (Brooklyn), The Residential (Des Moines), Université Laval (Québec City), Otis College of Art and Design (LA, CA), Center for Craft, Creativity and Design (Asheville, NC), Utah MOCA (SLC), Museum of Design (Atlanta), and the Mattress Factory (Pittsburgh, PA).
Our Resident Artist program is generously supported by OZ Architecture
