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Gabrielle Barzaghi: The Tzar’s Children

Gloucester’s Trident Gallery

By: - Jun 14, 2019

Gabrielle Barzaghi: The Tzar’s Children
Gloucester’s Trident Gallery
Artist event: Sunday, June 16, at 4 PM

The figurative/ narrative artist, Gabrielle Barzaghi, lives deep in the woods just steps from a copse of ghosts in Gloucester’s legendary Dogtown Common.

 Centuries ago settlers abandoned their properties including their dogs who according to folklore went wild, hence Dogtown.

A hike through that interior of Cape Ann is great for blueberry picking and some sleuthing. You may wax poetic about cellar holes and other evidence of primal habitation. Given the degree of upscale development it remains curious that the interior has been spared.

It’s where the artist likes to roam and perhaps reflect on the mythic narratives that inform her remarkable, large format, works on paper.

I have sat in the studio and discussed the work of an artist who has intrigued me for decades. That goes back to when we were faculty colleagues.

Much of what she disclosed to me during those intimate dialogues entailed her White Russian ancestors. There were stories of devastation and loss under the Bolsheviks.

How I would love to talk with her about the new works “The Tsar’s Children” on view in Gloucester’s landmark Trident Gallery. Surely we would unravel the tapestry of memory like Penelope holding off suitors. Perhaps in a sense we all long for the return of brave Ulysses from that voyage of time, space and memory.

Barzaghi has the unique gift of making the ephemeral visible. In that regard she is a ghost walker and shadow catcher.

On Sunday, June 16, at 4 PM the artist will discuss the work and take questions about it.

Asked about this new work she responded to the gallerist “Nothing is happening and everything is happening. It is the moment between events.”