By Sheilagh Casey
ATLANTIC HIGHLANDS – The exhibition now on view at the Atlantic Highlands Arts Council features paintings and poems by Christine Gizzi. It’s called, plainly, “Paintings and Poems.” But the artist has another name for it: Everyday Sacred.
“I call it Everyday Sacred because every day is new and sacred and you can find the sacred everywhere. You don’t have to be in a place of worship,” she says.
The works themselves range from very large to very small, very dark to very bright. Subjects range, too, from formal paint effect to motifs of human hands or even bugs. Yet they all stem from the same source, which is the artist’s own rich and varied life and experiences.
Christine Gizzi is an activist, wife, mother of three, and grandmother of two, who is known in the community for organizing SOS Matters, a nonprofit that provides emergency relief.
It was originally founded after Super Storm Sandy, but took its current name while providing supplies and funding to Coast Guard families during the 2018 federal government shutdown. Many of these young families were struggling without their paychecks. Gizzi’s husband, Tom Giaimo, a lawyer with an office in Rumson, and a member of the Middletown Board of Education, participates in this effort as well.
“A lot of my art is about releasing fear, affirmation, and making connections and finding similarities with others,” she says. “When my kids were little, I went back to Kean to do a master’s degree. I’d paint in this little basement room with one window as soon as the kids were asleep. Now, with my grandkids here, I paint in my head all day and push it out whenever I get some chunks of time.” Her degree from Kean University is in studio arts, specifically large format painting. As an undergrad, she studied illustration and fine art.
The busyness of life with toddlers in the house seems to actually stimulate the artist’s production. Although the paintings are not dated, the earlier pieces are the darkest ones, the ones in reds and blacks; the newer ones are filled with light.
Most of the paintings are accompanied by the text of a poem, part of a book Gizzi has written, mymaddogz and the lovely bird. These excerpts of the larger work serve as titles to the paintings. The paintings are elucidated by the text, if not fully explained by them.
The label for “fiery bright,” a 26 x 40” panel featuring a single large red bug, reads: “a pulsing glow of flickering light/cochineal carcasses fiery bright…” Cochineal? That’s a homely little bug that is the source of a brilliant red dye, still used today in many everyday products. It’s a strange, and wonderful, everyday thing that’s often overlooked. And that’s the kind of everyday sacred Gizzi loves and explores.
Her process? “I collect thoughts. Mine. Ideas I had previously written down. Memories, scribbled quickly before I forget on scraps of paper, a napkin, an old photo, and put them in a box, and channel them into my work. I read my poem for inspiration and a line may prompt an idea and I go from there.”
Some paintings feature repetitive patterns. Tom and Christine visited the Alhambra in Spain on their honeymoon. The Moorish tiles made a deep impression. Their motifs appear along with plaids and other patterns in paintings that share the title “Only People are Precious.” Gizzi comments, “It’s a big prayer. It’s convincing myself that it’s all OK….I’m fascinated by prayer, how people pray or worship, where they pray. We all have the same stuff. My paintings are prayers.”
“Christine Gizzi: Paintings and Poems” is on view at the Atlantic Highlands Arts Council, 54 First Ave., Atlantic Highlands through April 28. Visiting hours are Wednesday through Sunday afternoons. See aharts.org for more information about the AH Arts Council.
