To look at her artwork is to have to look twice.
The images in the paintings of Rachele Ciccone RISD '05 are certainly familiar - small 5"x7" portraits of Martha Stewart, Donald Trump and Bill O'Reilly adorn the white walls of Ciccone's studio. But there's a twist to Ciccone's depictions.
At Friday's Painting Department show at the Woods-Gerry Gallery, located on Prospect Street, Ciccone will exhibit one of her most recent works, entitled "New Millennia Plato's Cave."
Ever since reading Plato's "Allegory of the Cave"- a philosophical work that tries to define the human condition - Ciccone has been thinking of ways to translate her impression of the story into painting. In the "Allegory," Plato imagines the experience of people who have spent their entire lives within a cave. These people's only contact with the outside world is through shadows appearing on the cave's walls. The observers within the cave do not realize the shadows are reflections of actual objects - they believe the shadows themselves are reality.
Ciccone said her final product presents a modern version of Plato's allegory stamped with her own perception of the world.
A former English major at Providence College, Ciccone used to channel her creative energies through writing. But the sudden death of a friend in one of her art classes "jarred me to think about big life questions," Ciccone said. After two years at PC, Ciccone transferred to RISD, choosing to channel her creativity through painting.
"(Painting) is not limited in terms of what I want to express. You can be a sculptor with painting. You can be a photographer as a painter. It's the most open medium," she said.
That translation from one media to another has become a predominant theme in much of Ciccone's work.
Because she paints according to what is happening in the world, she often lets politics be her guide. News articles on the wall across her studio serve as reminders of where to take her art.
In light of the new millennia concept, Ciccone is currently working on a piece that will jokingly depict President Bush as the "new millennia Jesus." She compared the work to the satirical film "Team America."
"The media and government go hand in hand, and in that way, (Bush) gets his squad out," she said.
After Sept. 11, 2001, Ciccone's interest in an art that addresses politics and the media became more pronounced, she said. Terror alerts on the headline news made her more aware of the functioning of American politics.
In response to the media's portrayal of America's war on terrorism, Ciccone looks at the artwork of contemporary expressionist painter Anselm Kiefer for guidance. Growing up in post-war Germany, Kiefer dealt with the reality of his war-torn country by painting it, Ciccone said.
In her own art, Ciccone mimics Kiefer's style of distorting reality for an emotional effect, to express "how I feel as an American," she said.
To create the right mood in her workspace, Ciccone listens to classic rock music that was popular during the Vietnam War. Contemporary songs from the radio just don't inspire her, she said, but songs by Lynyrd Skynyrd and Johnny Cash set the tone she wants to reflect in her artwork.
Still, Ciccone does not call herself a political artist. In fact, much of Ciccone's art also documents how she perceives celebrities from magazines and newspapers.
In her art, Ciccone distorts the media's representation of celebrities "to pull out what maybe could be real from it," she said. In the expressionist tradition, Ciccone takes a "culture of waste" and turns it into something meaningful, she said.
One of her current projects is a modification of a photo of Paris Hilton "airbrushed and fake," Ciccone said. Though the actual image depicts Hilton half-naked and draws special attention to the glossiness of her skin, Ciccone's version abstractly depicts the "heiress" with a surfeit of yellow and green brushstrokes.
The ultimate goal is to show Hilton as "raw and sticky and gross," Ciccone said.
The painting also reveals Ciccone's gravitation towards certain colors. Born and raised in Rhode Island, Ciccone is especially drawn to blacks and grays, which she associates with her upbringing in the Ocean State. She then contrasts these darker shades with tropical colors, "the opposite of that gloom," she said.
Though Ciccone is working on a cohesive body of work that will culminate as her senior project, she said she is simultaneously discovering and developing her own style, one that will match her interests and skills. Thus far, she's been successful at marketing her art. She has been selling her paintings through the Internet since her sophomore year at RISD.
"The world takes me with my brush," Ciccone said.
