Image Archaeology: Doctoral Exhibition

PRESS RELEASE - 02.18.10

JOAN MARIE GIAMPA
Image Archaeology: Doctoral Exhibition
Mar 22 - Apr. 2, 2010

Opening reception:
Wednesday, March 24, 5-7 p.m.

George Mason University Galleries is pleased to presents: "Joan Marie Giampa—Image Archaeology: Doctoral Exhibition." The exhibition opens Monday March 22nd with a reception on Wednesday March 24 from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. in the Mason Hall Atrium Gallery.

Washington painter Joan Marie Giampa is presenting her doctoral exhibition at George Mason University. She has exhibited extensively in the mid-Atlantic region over the past 20 years. Giampa’s calls her painting process Image Archaeology and refers to herself as an “Image Archaeologist™. Her personal iconography is based on the discovery of objects in nature in their native environment.

“After finding an object, I take it home and digitize it with my camera. I then manipulate the photo in a software program called Photoshop to uncover the objects underlying structure. The uncovering process is really a series of filters that I use in Photoshop to remove the objects “outer skin” and reveal its “skeleton”. Once I feel I have the “skeleton”, I can then take the image to canvas.

I staple wet gessoed canvas onto my studio wall and project the image onto the canvas. I then carve into the wet gessoed canvas with the butt of a paintbrush an imprint of the “image skeleton”. I scrub into the surface ground with multiple layers of paint and rub paint into the grooves of the dried gesso surface. Additional layers of paint are then brushed lightly over the beveled edges of the image to unearth the skeletal impression. More layers of paint are brushed on and wiped away as the image becomes the surface ground and the surface ground becomes the image. It is this process of digging into the canvas and discovering the object within the corporeal ground that makes it “Image Archaeology” ™.

Giampa has an MFA in painting from the University of Maryland. She is a candidate in the DACCE (Doctorate of Arts Community College Education) program at George Mason University and will advance to candidacy in the summer of 2010. Joan is the owner and operator of the Red Caboose Gallery in historical downtown, Vienna, Virginia and president of the Arts Alliance of Vienna; a group that is dedicated to invigorating an awareness and growth of a township style community arts scene.

George Mason University
Mason Hall Atrium
4400 University Drive,
Fairfax, Virginia 22030
703-349-7178