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What are the artistic possibilities of common and discarded materials? Saint Mary’s College Museum of Art (SMCMoA) highlights this question through the opening of two new exhibitions: Isole: A Voyage Among My Dreams and Visceral Processes. These exhibitions bring Cianne Fragione's artistic vision into conversation with those of her predecessors Jay DeFeo, Frank Lobdell, and Manuel Neri.

The museum will host an artist talk with Fragione on Wednesday, September 18, from 1:30 to 3 p.m. This event will take place at the Soda Activity Center on the Saint Mary’s College campus. There will be an opening celebration for fall exhibitions the next day, Thursday, September 19, from 5 to 7 p.m. Opening remarks will be delivered in the museum courtyard. Both events are free and open to the public. After opening, Isole will remain on view through June 22, 2025; Visceral Processes will remain on view through December 15, 2024.

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Isole: A Voyage Among My Dreams, by visual artist Cianne Fragione, features a combination of 33 paintings, drawings, and assemblages in conversation with a collection of poems, Ossi di Seppia by Eugenio Montale. Created with oil paint and mixed-media materials, including found objects and textiles, this exhibition draws on themes common in Montale’s work, including memories, traditions, and histories. Using gestural marks inspired by movement, Fragione conjures images of the land, sky, and sea. Repurposed materials, such as shoes, lace, and journal pages, evoke sites of cultural heritage. Together, language, motion, and materials blur the lines between spatial and temporal boundaries, calling attention to the fluid nature of human experience.

“The works of Isole extend my long-standing interest in fragments of written language, found materials and space—‘what is buried underneath to be found again.’ The quote is my own and refers to the archaeological sites along the Ionian Sea in Italy, where I lived for some months,” shares artist Fragione. “Made with materials that relate to those landscapes—handmade paints, raw pigments, textiles, referential objects of one kind or another—the works on paper seek a luminous, seductive beauty. Further, they embody an idea of recombination that reflects my interest in multiple, juxtaposed spaces, a deep pictorial sense of landscape and light, and materials broken into collections of small vistas or visual vignettes.”

“The works of Isole extend my long-standing interest in fragments of written language, found materials and space—‘what is buried underneath to be found again.’”

—Cianne Fragione 

“Fragione’s experimentation and innovative approach to materiality challenge conventional notions of form and representation, creating a vibrant and thought-provoking dialogue between the artist and the audience,” states Executive Director Lauren MacDonald.

Isole: A Voyage Among My Dreams is accompanied by a catalogue. The publication features an illustrated checklist of 33 works, a director introduction, an artist vision statement, a curator essay, and a poem. The catalogue is designed by Olivia Basic and published by the Saint Mary’s College Museum of Art.

�ǿմ�ý Cianne Fragione 

Influenced by her Italian heritage, Cianne Fragione (b. 1952, United States) draws on personal and cultural experience during her creative process. She received her MFA (1987) in Painting/Mixed-Media at John F. Kennedy University Fiberworks Center for the Arts in Berkeley, California. Over five decades, she has developed work that crosses boundaries between abstract painting and sculpture, navigating a wide range of artistic mediums. In addition to the exhibition at Saint Mary’s College Museum of Art (SMCMoA), her work has been shown extensively in solo and group exhibitions. This includes the traveling exhibition, Pocket Full of Promise, at Cecelia Coker Bell Gallery, Coker College, Hartsville, South Carolina, and Anne Wright Wilson Gallery, Georgetown College, Kentucky. Other showcases have taken place at the Wiregrass Museum Biennial 24, Dothan, Alabama.; Arts-In-Embassies, Geneva, Switzerland; Anya and Andrew Shiva Gallery, New York; American University Museum, Washington, DC.; John D. Calandra Italian American Institute of Queens College, CUNY, New York; Associazione di Museo D’Arte Contemporaneo Italiano, Catanzaro, Italy;  a ten-year retrospective at Harmony Hall Regional Center, Washington, Maryland;  the  University of Scranton Art Museum, Scranton, Pennsylvania; The Textile Museum, Washington, DC; Art in Embassies, Sofia, Bulgaria, and Vilnius, Lithuania; Elizabeth Foundation, New York; Indianapolis Art Center, Indiana; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Gallery, California; and Gallery Neptune & Brown, Washington, DC

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The exhibition Visceral Processes features a combination of 32 drawings, collages, works on paper, and paintings by three San Francisco Bay Area artists: Jay DeFeo (1929–89), Frank Lobdell (1921–2013), and Manuel Neri (1930–2021). Known for their countercultural aesthetics merging in the 1950s, these artists examined discarded and ordinary objects as underlying metaphors for the human condition. Created during the post-WWII boom, this collection incorporates elements of Abstract Expressionism, Bay Area Figurative, and Funk, highlighting the fluid boundaries between art movements. 

Visceral Processes seeks to contextualize DeFeo, Lobdell, and Neri's impact as artists and mentors in the San Francisco Bay Area. The exhibition features sketches that reveal the intentions of the artists and recurring motifs in their works. As contemporaries, DeFeo, Lobdell, and Neri were in dialogue, and Visceral Processes reveals the overlap of their ideas. 

“Contextualizing Fragione’s work into California art history enables us to draw attention to how ideas spread and impact one generation to the next.”

—Britt Royer, Curator

“These artists worked with students throughout their art practice; this provided a fertile ground for ideas to expand to their students,” explains curator Britt Royer, who organized the show in conversation with Cianne Fragione’s Isole: A Voyage Among My Dreams. DeFeo, Lobdell, and Neri mentored Fragione through the late 1980s, deeply impacting her sketches and approach to materials. An educational gallery bridges the two exhibitions, where visitors are invited to reflect on the ideas and concepts of the exhibitions. Within this space are original works on paper by Manuel Neri, Frank Lobdell, and Cianne Fragione and a hands-on learning activity to explore found art and build assemblage. 

“Contextualizing Fragione’s work into California art history enables us to draw attention to how ideas spread and impact one generation to the next,” Royer says. “It is important for us to enable these two different stories to exist in their own space and yet provide a lens to see how they are related. Cultivating a space for our students to consider and explore these connections activates many of the skills associated with a liberal arts education.”  

On view through December 15, 2024, Visceral Processes is presented in collaboration with The Jay DeFeo Foundation, Hacket Mill Gallery, The Cianne Fragione Trust, and through the generosity of private collectors. See stmarys-ca.edu/museum for additional programs and events. 

�ǿմ�ý Saint Mary’s College Museum of Art 

Saint Mary’s College Museum of Art (SMCMoA) is a landmark for art in Northern California, with a permanent collection of over 5,000 objects. Inspired by its founder, Brother Cornelius Braeg, the museum cares for the nation’s most comprehensive collection of William Keith paintings. The museum offers educational and programming opportunities with rotating exhibitions twice a year for the College and the surrounding community. SMCMoA is located across the street from the Soda Activity Center at �ǿմ�ý in Moraga, California. Programs and admission are free for all. Public tours begin on Saturday, October 5 and will be offered Wednesdays at 11 a.m. and Saturdays at 2 p.m. Please contact Saint Mary’s College Museum of Art at 925-631-4379 or email museum@stmarys-ca.edu for further details. More information can be found at stmarys-ca.edu/museum or by following us on social media .

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At �ǿմ�ý, we inspire minds, engage with the world, and create opportunities for students to find their lives transformed. With small class sizes and professors who know you by name, the Saint Mary’s experience empowers students to thrive—whether you’re an undergraduate or a professional looking for the next step in your career. Founded in 1863, the University is proud of our Lasallian heritage and how it fuels teaching and learning in an inclusive and wonderfully diverse community. More than 3,600 Gaels study on our Bay Area campus nestled in the rolling hills of Moraga, just 23 miles east of San Francisco. US News and World Report puts SMC among the top five regional universities in the West. You’ll also find Saint Mary’s highlighted in the guide Colleges That Change Lives: 40 Schools That Will Change the Way You Think �ǿմ�ý Colleges—the only Catholic college and the only university in California to make the list.