August 30 - September 16, 2017
Coppola’s work is a response to being born in the regional Victorian town of Mildura to Italian parents who migrated from the region of Campania. Her work explores the complexities of duality and what it is to navigate a journey between two cultures. Coppola's exhibition, 'I Stand Alone', explores the role of the feminine within this cultural context. Her delicate pastel drawings capture moments of duality – of being a hybrid of Italian/Australian cultures. This is represented in her work through the visual play of presence and absence, plant and animal, and internal and external. Her work utilizes segments of native Australian orchids; intentionally taken out of context, enlarged and drawn so that the texture of the petals resembles animal fur. They are depicted in the foreground of William Morris wallpaper designs, a reference to the migration of Coppola's parents to an English colony. Together these elements subvert their original forms and infer cultural integration, as well as a sense of morphing and mutating.
Filomena Coppola has exhibited widely over the past ten years and has been included in several drawing exhibitions including JADA Drawing Award, The Robert Jacks Drawing Award, the City of Banyule Drawing Award and The Hutchins Drawing Prize, where she was awarded a Judges Selection in 2001, and she was awarded The City of Hobart Art Prize in 1994. Filomena has been the recipient of several awards and residencies including Arts Victoria Development Grant 2013 (for Alpha Sound), Regional Arts Victoria Project Funding in 2012 (for Mother Tongue), the Vermont Studio Centre Residency and Part Fellowship, Vermont, USA in 2004, Ian Potter Foundation Individual Grant in 2001, Arts Tasmania Development Grant in 1999 and the Rosamond McCulloch Scholarship to the Cite Internationale des Arts, Paris in 1997. Her work is represented in collections including Artbank, Parliament House Collection Canberra, Print Council of Australia, University of Tasmania Launceston and Hobart, Mornington Peninsula Gallery, The Hutchins School, Banyule City Council and the Devonport Art Gallery.
