By Andrea Mastrovito
The Foley Gallery, New York, NY
11-11-09
Andrea Mastrovito's exhibit appealed to me because she was working in a method similar to my series project; using collage. I was immediately drawn in by the diptych Firing Squad by the use of space and color. The backgrounds are strictly kept to cool blues while the foreground is exploding in warm reds and yellows and white. The cut-out shapes worked well in her pieces. They act as voids the viewer is encouraged to fill in using their imagination or own personal life. Letters of L, O, V, and E are scrambled in each scene, depending on the image, it either fills up a body or acts as the ground or both.
The series works because it is about visually depicting the concept of Love. Love may be a four-letter word, but it is not a simple definition. Mastrovito utilizes a concept of a series to explore different kinds of loves and how love is really in the ey of the beholder. Take Doggy Style for example, there is one dog filled with the letters of love mounting this blank dog who is looking away. By not seeing the animal's face and by observing it's absence of those letters, we begin to question the story behind the work. One may say the white dog's feelings are not consensual with the other or perhaps the white dog is overcame with a sense of shame or guilt that forces it to shy away from the viewer. This technique really engages the viewer to formulate their own conclusions within each piece.
Her exploration of love expands beyond just sex and intimate relationships. In the series, we can observe the love for war, the love of sacrifice, the love in salvation, the love of the hunt, the love of running away, and so much more. Others viewing the show may read each image as a different kind of love compared to my interpretations depending on their own personal connections with the work.
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