“Swan School; The Matriculation”
Ali Fitzgerald
April 18 - June 7, 2008
Please join us Friday, April 18th (8-10pm) as Art Palace presents Swan School; The Matriculation, Ali Fitzgerald’s second solo exhibition at Art Palace. Fitzgerald’s current body of work explores victimization and violence within a forged adolescent caste-system. Through drawing based sculptures, dioramas and site-specific installations, Fitzgerald surveys a dystopian boarding school complex, within whose misleading facades, we see residue of girlhood gone awry.
In Swan School, Fitzgerald turns to the emotionally charged ostentation of the Gothic, referencing movies like Robert Wise’s The Haunting, in which the undulating spaces themselves reflect a character’s psychological state. Her architecturally impossible facades allude to both privileged east coast boarding schools and to the supposedly solemn naves of old cathedrals. These structures house and protect fantastic scenarios involving Fitzgerald’s imprisoned character Sad Little White Girl and her tormentors.
Swan School; The Matriculation is on view from April 18th through June 7th, 2008. Art Palace is located at 2109 E. Cesar Chavez St. (next door to Taqueria Chapala) between Chicon and Robert Martinez. Gallery Hours: Saturday noon to 5pm, Wednesday 7-9pm or by appointment. For further information or images, please contact the gallery at 512.496.0687 or info@artpalacegallery.com.
About the Artist
Ali Fitzgerald’s work is currently on view at the Austin Museum of Art for 20 to Watch and Road Agent’s Palace does Dallas. Her work has been exhibited at Diverseworks for New Texas Painting (2005) and Luck of the Draw (2007), Arthouse at the Jones Center for Siren’s Song (2007), curated by Kelly Baum, and Who Killed Chuck Tracy? at The Bungalow Project in San Antonio (2006). Her dioramas have recently been featured in Art In America and Beautiful/Decay. Receiving her MFA in Studio Art from the University of Texas at Austin in 2007, Ali received her BA from Davidson College and attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (2004). She was awarded a Takt Residency position in Berlin, Germany in 2007.
Photo Credit: Carling Hale
