Ilene Kutner Vultaggio   artist

about Ilene

Franklin Perrell, former chief curator of the Nassau County Museum of Art and current Executive Director of the Roslyn Landmark Society, describes Vultaggio's work:

"Vultaggio's realist nudes eschew academic as well s cosmetic idealism. Eros is supplanted by direct transcriptions which are inevitably heroic: honest and extreme, they evoke the palpability of flesh as a document of a life's history. Empathetic with gravity and materiality, strength yet vulnerability, the swollen or attenuated contours evoke comparison to the figures of Lucien Freud or Francis Bacon. The forthrightness of the artist's perception impels the viewer's immediate recognition and familiarity, indeed an intimacy, possibly uncomfortable, with the subject. In a manner reminiscent of Manet in the 19th century, they are transcriptions that are at odds with their contemporary context.

While they look unfamiliar, they are linked to past tradition, especially in the baroque. For Vultaggio, while the artistic sublime is achieved through fidelity to the observed, this quality arises from the timeless and universal character of her subject, to which she ascribes a sensibility that can best be described as monumental. Vultaggio's distinctive palette, emphasizing terracotta hues and deep tonal contrasts, gives an ancient and timeless aura to these representations. The product of several years of studio observation and study, these works project a humanistic empathy, even compassion, or identification, with her subject that hearkens to a romanticism of time past, with hints of such heroic precursors as Rodin and Michelangelo."