Tartuffo

Tartuffo is a wonderful gelato involving different combinations of chocolate, cocoa powder, chocolate sauce, chocolate shavings...you get the idea. It is a specialty of one of my favourite Calabrian towns, Pizzo. Each gelateria--and there are many-- in the town square has its own spin on making a Tartuffo. My spin on my experience of Pizzo is partially captured in this large, 48 x 36 inch painting.

This composition, like the others in my Calabria Series, began with fabrics and photo transfers.  I really liked it as a textile piece and deliberated for a long while whether I should simply present it as such.  I had thought I would stitch it to a linen support and then stretch it like a canvas.  In the end, I decided that as I am a painter rather than a textile artist, I should glue it to a canvas and use it as the basis for a painting.  I added more fabric elements to the original composition in order for it to fit the large canvas I had on hand in my studio.  Waste not want not!

If you look closely, you will see an elderly signora gazing out the window of her apartamento to the square below, where a small family of Canadiensi are seated at a gelateria,  savouring their first ever taste of Tartuffo.