LA Artcore presents the first exhibition (watch video) held in Southern California by the Atlanta-born artist Sallie Whistler Marcucci. This exhibition will feature the artists' latest paintings. 

An original theme titled "Whistler's Aunt" was composed to accompany this exhibition and is performed by the Italian world-jazz duo Sabina Manetti and Emiliano Pasquinucci.

Sallie Whistler Marcucci's works have a beautiful, poetic vibrancy in her imagery - a resonant energy with an harmonious flow like music. In this sense it is "pure painting", expanding moment by moment with vitality and force. Using a musical metaphor, Sallie Whistler Marcucci blends the free-flow improvisation of Jazz atop the formality and structure of Classical music.

On one hand, Sallie Whistler Marcucci's pictures seem modern. Bold patters and flat shapes are composed with abstract discipline, but the images are evocative of ancient Roman cities, Medieval tapestries and Japanese paintings. Her touch is delicate, but the overall image results complex and bold.

Each work is a construction of overlapping layers of thin acrylic paint, creating a uniform but rich textural effect. A precise sense of graphic value embodies a variety of contrasts: intricate detail, bold composition and whispered nuance.

Perhaps the most attractive element in her paintings is the air of mystery that permeates the imagery. This might be the result of her creating process, where shapes and patterns are created, to then be masked, blended or even erased by the subsequent layers of paint. Sometimes entire compositions are hidden from view - buried under the last layer of paint - but their ghosts images is still felt.

In conjunction with the exhibition "Whistler's Aunt", the artist Sallie Whistler Marcucci will sign her new book "Cartoons by Sallie" on Saturday, January 29th, from 3 - 5 pm. The book, published by Editrice Innocenti, features a collection of sketches and drawings from the last 30 years contributing for Italian newspapers, Il Messagero, La Repubblica, La Nazione,  as well as a number of magazines and books published in Europe and the U.S.A. In addition the artist will present "Sallie's Los Angeles", a new series of humorous 9" x 12" signed pen-and-pencil-on-paper originals cartoon panels about her experiences and observations about life in Los Angeles. 

Sallie Whistler Marcucci (a descendant of American artist  James Abbott McNeill Whistler), began studying art with artist Hans Joachim Staude soon after moving to Florence, Italy, in the early 50's. In 1956, she attended the Art Student's League in New York to study lithography and etching with artist Harry Sternberg, then studied watercolor with Oskar Kokoschka in Salzburg, Austria.

The Tuscany-resident artist's past solo exhibitions includes a show at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia, the 1972 Two Worlds Festival in Spoleto, Italy, at Galleria Lancilotto in Rome, at Palazzo Strozzi and at the Torre di Bellosguardo in Florence in 1976, at Ann Jacob Gallery in Atlanta and Palm Beach in 1989, University of Brenau, Athens, Georgia, in 1989, at the Centro d’Arte Visive, in Piombino, Italy, in 2006, at La Torre di San Vincenzo and at Il Zanzibar in San Vincenzo, Italy in 2009. Her group exhibitions include a group exhibition at the Fête de Saint Maur sur Loir at Chateau de Memillon, France, a 1974 group exhibition at Temple University Abroad in Rome, at the “Etruriarte Salone di Arte Contemporanea" in Venturina, Italy, a group exhibit held in Piazza Donatello, Florence, where she was awarded the “Province of Florence” medal.

Sallie Whistler Marcucci collaborated with the Canadian photographer Roloff Beny on four books: Persia, Bridge of Turquoise, 1975; Iran, Elements of Destiny, 1978; Odyssey, 1981; and Rajasthan, 1984. e U.S.A.