Gabriella D’Italia: Getting Dressed in the Dark

Fields and Furrows, 2023, Monoprint on paper, 30 x 22 inches

Artist’s Statement:
I’ve always been drawn to the small, the repetitive, and the rhythms of homogenous forms, especially in nature. Using materials, whether paint and ink, textiles, video, or text, I translate the illusion of linear time into the presence of material change. This translation has become a way of meaning-making in an increasingly polarized culture where we are deluged with information and forced to reconsider the nature of truth as media and AI confuse our most basic communications and Enlightenment intellectual ethics break down in real time.

My most recent mixed media works on canvas and paper are from an ongoing series that I began in 2011 called “Nature: Up Close”. Using stencils derived from organic subjects, collage, monoprint, and freeform painting and drawing, I layer patterns in various degrees of transparency. Each layer responds to the previous one and elaborates an ongoing story. This meditative practice brings me into the rhythms of the natural environment and, by extension, my own body. Some layers disappear, and new compound patterns emerge. It is algorithmic from the inside out, instead of corporate abstractions reflected into creative acts and transforming them from the outside in.

Before I translated these thoughts and practices into two-dimensional media, I worked for many years primarily in textiles, starting with traditional quilting techniques. I was drawn to this work because of the patterning and the incremental nature of the work: one piece at a time. This has influenced all of the work since, and I always go back to working with fiber.

I also use video and text to translate the implications of these material meditations into narrative forms. Most recently, my written work can be found at Hobart and in my memoir Getting Dressed in the Dark, An Artist’s Way Home from Unsolicited Press. As our understanding of connection changes, so does the form of our storytelling and our visual expressions.

As new patterns emerge, I find the truth of all transformation, a kind of material mantra, and the possibility of a more humane and interconnected understanding.

Artist’s Bio
Gabriella D’Italia (she/her) is an interdisciplinary artist, writer, and Master Gardener who believes that true stories lie at the horizon between spirit and body, vision and the material world.

D’Italia grew up in Morristown, NJ. After receiving her BA in Philosophy and the History of Science and Mathematics through the Great Books program at St. John’s College, she moved to Boston and then Maine, where for two decades she worked in costume design, quilting, leadership roles in nationally recognized fine craft organizations, and teaching courses on creativity. She holds an MFA in Intermedia from the University of Maine, Orono.

D’Italia’s work has been the recipient of several grants and awards (Quilt National International Biennial, Honorable Mention: National Fiber Directions) as well as exhibited at biennials (Center for Maine Contemporary Art), salons (Writing Leap Art & Literary Salon, Los Angeles), embassies (US Embassy in Doha, Qatar), and galleries internationally. She has received fellowships for several residencies, including Haystack Mountain School of Craft, Maine, Lillstreet Art Center, Chicago, and Mildred’s Lane.

D’Italia’s relationship with the materials of everyday living is explored throughout her book, Getting Dressed in the Dark: An Artist’s Way Home (Unsolicited Press, 2025), an artist’s memoir that traces her way home after personal crisis. It explores personal and cultural inheritance, as well as how meaning is made in an increasingly polarized climate.

D’Italia lives and works in Mt. Tabor, New Jersey, with artist C. W. Crawford, their son, and their dogs: Petey and Flash.