PAULA SAPONARO: DECADES & DETOURS / RETROSPECTIVE / EXHIBITION

By utilizing a wide combination of mediums that give s a freedom and excitement to her work,Ms. Saponaro’s signature painting and drawing style captures often overlooked elements of our world.

“As a non-representational artist, I concentrate on the use of color and strong graphic-like applications.
—what I like to think of as my own language.”

Her elaborate blending of wet and dry media lends a textural quality to the work, allowing the use of
hard-edged spaces, varied brush strokes and complex layers of color.

The storytelling and non-traditional depictions of this Great Basin Artist vividly translates to her subjects:
Landscapes become finely crafted views of our high desert, imbued with sweeping energy and motion,
while purely abstracted works are motivated by a sheer love of color and form.

Her figurative works range from observations of “our on-going construction of contemporary
mythologies and politic” to highly sophisticated, sensual, and often, disturbing translations of what Ms.
Saponaro describes as the “the human animal.”

The graphic quality of her work is greatly informed by her early years. Although primarily self-taught,
(“making art is the best way to learn art”), early encouragement came from the tutelage of renowned art
teacher George Landino and further influenced by her father’s instruction as a draughtsman.

This aspect of her work is obvious in her distinctive urbanscapes and close inspection of her body of
work reveals an incorporation of symbols (“lots of Xs and spirals”), words and letters, or what she calls
“personal iconography.”

But the biggest shift in expression came after moving west in 1980. She served as Art Director for the
Hermit

age Gallery in Reno, which fostered a love of printmaking and led to training with Nolan Preece
of UNR, Eric Lindgren of Hand Graphics in Santa Fe and the Magnolia Press in San Francisco.
For over thirty-five prolific years, Paula Saponaro has produced work in inspirational studio residences
in Floriston, California, Silver City, Nevada, the 1870 Sutro Warehouse Barn outside Dayton, Nevada,
and in her current Carson City residence.

Paula Saponaro will continue printmaking activities this spring—in tandem with her upcoming March-
May 2018 exhibition at the historical St. Mary’s Art Center and Retreat in Virginia City.

Art enthusiasts and patrons are welcome to this event encouraged to attend the closing reception on June 3rd, 2018