NOW ON VIEW:
Featuring new and recent work by Osceola Refetoff, Francesca Bifulco and Andrew K. Thompson
Curated by Shana Nys Dambrot
College of the Desert, Marks Art Center, Palm Desert
November 7 - December 15, 2023
Artist Reception: November 15, 4-6 PM
Meet Wishful, Wicked Painter Francesca Bifulco by Shana Nys Dambrot, LA Weekly
Francesca Bifulco is a Los Angeles-based contemporary artist from the ancient city of Pæstum, Southern Italy. Her work processes personal and collective aspects of the human experience channeling the coexistence of its duality through painting, mixed media, and multimedia. Her immersive collaborative environments interlace sound, video, and performances enhanced by fabrication and lighting design, as integral extensions of her practice. Using an experimental approach to each medium, Bifulco’s visual language plays with scale, textures or the illusion of textures, and effects, reversing and reconfiguring the material through a versatile and innovative implementation of techniques. Her subjects have spanned from crowds and the force of plurality to individuals affected by social media culture, to men playing cards in a conflicted and underrepresented neighborhood of Naples, Italy. In her current series she focuses on three different themes: the sociopolitical awakening in the U.S. with emphasis on the constructs against women, navigating loss through preservation of memory, and reinterpreting the iconic LA palm tree as a symbol of the communal endurance of transplants and immigrants. Her conscious approach to different narratives is permeated with an anthropological perspective running through her overall creative process of exploring, relating, and giving back. Bifulco is the other member of the multidisciplinary artist duo, Card 0 Collective, and the artist ambassador and board member for the LA based-female lead IAC (Immersive Arts Center), a nonprofit organization providing arts programs and workshops to at risk-youth and underserved communities. Her studio is located in the Lincoln Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles.
EDUCATION
2011 Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma, BA, Set design for Visual and Performing Arts, Rome
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2023 Candles Burning in the Wind, Bermudez Projects, Los Angeles
2018 Forcella Reigns: The Men Who Play Cards, supported by IAMLA, ZJU Theater, Los Angeles
2015 Inside Out Of Touch, WAAS Gallery, Dallas
2012 People: Multitude-Solitude, 2-person curated by A. Dusi, ADC Gallery, Bergamot Station, Santa Monica
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2023 The Passage, curated by Liz Walsh, Discount Mirrors Gallery, Los Angeles
2023 Where Earth Becomes Aether, curated by J. Jenn/V. Radovanović, Wönzimer, Los Angeles
2022 Spaceland VI: Requiem, Bermudez Projects, Los Angeles
2022 Fast Forward: The Future Is Equal, Bermudez Projects, Los Angeles
2022 Fast Forward: The Future Is Female, Bermudez Projects, Los Angeles
2021 Supermoon 8, curated by Liz Walsh x LAST Projects, Los Angeles
2020 The creative reimagining, (virtual exhibition), MOZAIK Philanthropy, Los Angeles
2020 Human, Stay Gallery (virtual exhibition), Downey, CA
2020 Supermoon 3, curated by Liz Walsh x LAST Projects, Los Angeles
2017 Schomburg Gallery, Bergamot Station, Santa Monica
2016 Play, LAMAG, Los Angeles
2014 WAAS Gallery, Dallas
2013 Atmosfere, Associazione Heart, Vimercate, Italy
2013 Bergamot Station 19th Anniversary Show, JNA Gallery, Santa Monica
2013 Tracce di Contemporaneo, Villa Filippini, Besana Brianza, Italy
2013 I Cantieri Dell'Immaginario, Zona Rossa, L’Aquila, Italy
2013 Trusted with Altars curated by Rodney Burns, CHURCH, Los Angeles
2012 Limbo, curated by Aja Milan Martin, WAAS Gallery, Dallas
2012 HIBI, curated by Kio Griffith, 605 Project Space by Gallery Lara, Tokyo
RECOGNITIONS
2021 MOZAIK Flow Funders in the Arts, juror
2020 MOZAIK Future Art Award, recipient
2016 LAMAG Los Angeles Municipal Gallery, Second Place in Play, City of Los Angeles Juried Group Exhibition
PRESS
2023 Meet Wishful, Wicked Painter Francesca Bifulco, Interview by Shana Nys Dambrot, LA Weekly
2023 Francesca Bifulco: Candles Burning in the Wind, Interview by Roberto Croci, Hestetika
2021 Meet Francesca Bifulco, Interview, Shoutout LA
2020 Le vite dei neri contano, lo dicono gli art-ivisti, Interview by Roberto Croci, Il Venerdì, Print media
2019 Meet Francesca Bifulco and Alex Schetter, Thought-Provokers series, Interview, VoyageLA
2018 Forcella Reigns: The Men Who Play Cards, Review by Hoyt Hilsman, Riot Material
2018 The Italian Experience, Go LA , by Shana Nys Dambrot, LA Weekly, Print media
