As fine art photographer, Marlene Luce Tremblay, walked through the gardens of Lake Como’s Villa Carlotta, it was as if the colorful blooms whispered life into the mid-18th/early-19th century sculptures they cradle. She witnessed Antonio Canova’s Palamedes walk among the flowerbeds of pink and purple azaleas, and watched as Adamo Tadolini’s Eros and Psyche danced, the leaves of the verdant trees rustling in approval. She listened as Luigi Acquisti’s Mars and Venus debated about war and peace. “In the end, they opted for love,” she says.
Be it Manhattan’s urban cityscape, the ancient pyramids of Egypt, or the mystical landscapes of Tunisia, Tremblay, is inspired by the environments in which she creates. Last summer, when her artistic journey led her to the foothills of the Alps, she found herself immersed in the poetic setting of the lakeside Villa Carlotta, built at the end of the 17th century by the Marquis Giorgio Clerici. Her lyrical “pintographs” come to life from June 26th to July 10th, 2019 at the Museum and Botanical Garden of Villa Carlotta in her latest exhibition, Love in Lake Como.
The exhibition is curated by Elisa Larese of Tablinum Cultural Management, an art studio born in 2013, which works with major local and international contemporary artists. When the curators met Tremblay at the Florence Biennale in 2017, they invited her to exhibit her work at Villa Carlotta. While the studio is based in Bellagio on Lake Como, they also have locations in cities around the world, including Lugano, Genova, Paris, and Miami.
Love in Lake Como features Tremblay’s newest series, this time, inspired by the sculptures of Italian neo-classical masters existing in seamless harmony with Lake Como’s natural landscape. In the eyes of the artist, there is a direct relationship between mankind and the natural world. She explains, “While we are witnessing the effects of climate change, the Botanical Garden at Villa Carlotta is a reminder of the beauty of the natural world which we often take for granted. The laws of nature are the same concerns for mankind, and to live in harmony with the natural world is what gives sense to our humanity.”
Tremblay’s art is created using an artistic process that is unique to her work: pintography. First, the artist photographs the image she aims to capture. Then, she digitally transforms the photographs by adding tints and hues of color that emphasize her vision. The images are enlarged and printed on canvas. In the final step, Tremblay paints over the canvas in oil paint, a technique that accentuates the shades of the particular color she’s selected to realize her unique perspective.
From Egypt to Italy, and Tunisia to the United States, Tremblay travels from one place to another on an artistic quest that is driven by the desire to discover and reveal one thing through her art: the common thread that unites humanity in a culturally diverse world. According to the artist, work featured in Love in Lake Como speaks to this theme. Tremblay explains, “The natural world is as diverse as our humanity yet there is a common thread, our common humanity, that allows for harmony to thrive. It is a choice that we can all make every day to live in harmony with the natural world and that of mankind.“
Love in Lake Como will be on view at the Museum and Botanical Garden of Villa Carlotta in Tremezzina, Lake Como, from June 26th to July 10th, 2019.
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