Francesca DiMattio
INSIDERS
More is more when it comes to Francesca DiMattio. Her approach to making is as excessive and theatrical as the Rococo style she often alludes to in her sculptures and furniture. As an ancient discipline, ceramics have a vast catalog of styles to draw from by today’s artists engaging in the medium—as is the case for DiMattio, whose passion for historical references also manifests through nods to British Wedgwood, Greek black-and-red-figure pottery, Roman mosaics, and French Sèvres porcelain. But while beautiful, her remixes of traditional ceramics are off-kilter vignettes of domesticity. She offers a conscious disconnect between objects and influences in large-scale three- dimensional collages.
With an unapologetic riot of pattern and texture, she “Frankensteins” sculptures from commonplace objects, such as sneakers, laundry detergent, and garbage bags, which she camouflages with the orna- mental language of elite decorative arts. Through this façade, she blurs the lines between high and low and craft and art, destabilizing hierarchies of value. Furthermore, DiMattio plays with material performativity through work where things are often not what they seem: clay can be fiber, and paint can be ceramic.
B. 1981, New York, NY
Lives and works in New York, NY
MR58
Francesca Dimattio, Sculptural Mirror with Bud Vases, 2024, Porcelain, glaze. Courtesy of the artist and Nina Johnson Gallery, photo by R & Company.