Oil on Canvas, 36" x 60", 2022, St. Louis, MO

The Son

Mucha feria

Broke

NitBus

Final destination

Thinking of you

To the limit

Oil on Canvas, 48" x 72", 2023, St. Louis, MO

Love

I used an intricate, colored collage of pronto plate prints to convey the depth of feeling with which the world still mourns the Titanic and her passengers. Is the story timeless because of its supremely terrifying nature, like Pompeii? Or is it that, in an Industrial Age, it remains a start reminder of the disastrous consequences of overconfidence in technology? The front of the shirt is symbolic, six boxes representing the six compartments which flooded. The fabric holding the prints has been cut and sewn back together, pieces are missing and the overall form is distorted. Two ways of representing and understanding the same event: a tragic false sense of security in engineering excellence, and a brutal display of nature's indifference and unrelenting force. 

Titantic 

This work centers on cellophane printing and the creation of structured flight, which I chose for its geometric qualities and functionality as a stand-alone sculpture post-flight. Simultaneously using two plates and actual leaves that I moved between the plates in a layering process created this effect. 

Exploration of Flying

Watercolor on Paper, 26" x 20", 2023, St. Louis, MO

Daze

Watercolor on Paper, 16" x 20", St. Louis, MO

Supper

Guitar Player

Oil on Canvas Board, 16" x 20", (2023); St. Louis, MO

Reflection

30" x 36" oil on canvas (2023); St. Louis, MO

Birds Nest

alinea

ordo

These photographs were taken one summer in New Jersey.
Houses with closed doors, a limit, a threshold that we would like to cross.
To provoke the exchange, the meeting, to dare the other. We are constantly
reducing distances, but our physical links tend to become rarer, moving us
away from an essential need made of reality. Today faced with isolation,
forced into confinement, I think back to this threshold, impatient to set foot
there, impatient to cross it to meet again, to find itself again.

Treshold

Work part of the postponed degree show (due to COVID - 19): Turn the lights out when you leave, at Coventry University. 

About the work:
The space was split into two suggested sections, the exhibition side (a more traditional exhibition environment with white walls and grey floors) and the home side (an interactive installation responding to themes of the home, memories around the space and experiences of safety and reassurance). The exhibition side responds to the more traditional norms of an exhibition environment, white walls and grey floors with a mix of hung, wall based artworks and a suspended artwork. The three wall based works are explorations of memory and the reliability of our memories. They combine two dimensional studies into one whole piece - a mix of abstracted materials, deteriorated material, printmaking material and photographic material.  In the end of the space suspends a tapestry piece made up of the made using leftover, residual marked pieces of material all sown and stuck together and then suspended from a ceiling support. There is a spirituality to the piece, which acted as the backdrop to the film, that would have sat on the plinth. Behind the tapestry is a hidden photographic piece and light illuminating the floor and bottom. 
The home side is made to feel more of a lived in environment for the audience to explore and discover similar to being at your grandparents or family members house. 
The installation is made to be interacted with breaking the norms of the gallery environment, which contradicts the rest of the exhibition as a whole and the exhibition side. The furniture and found material are from my grandfathers garage, but missing is a tall bookshelf unit that would have sat in the left corner of the room. The mix of nostalgic, ‘historical’ furniture with the more contemporary light box and hanging and interactive pieces makes the space feel unique and interesting to explore.
​
The audience are invited to explore the space and interact with what they think can be explored, discovering artworks within artworks and hidden areas of the space. The audience is also encouraged to apply their own memories to the space, the work is a collective exploration of memory and remembering. Exploring the 2D wall based studies, super 8 film projection (made with my grandfathers equipment, exploring Coventry, memory, deterioration, fading, loss, candid moments and the mundane), furniture, and interactive material (view master, light box etc). 

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William Bagnoli

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