Back in June 2009, the City Council passed a change to the City Code requiring downtown property owners with retail store fronts to cover or decorate the windows if the store remains vacant for more than 30 days. That law has been largely ignored for the most part but this week the New Rochelle BID and Municipal Arts Commission unveiled a joint effort to beautify the retail store front in the Planned Parenthood building between the U.S. Post Office and the 5 Anderson building.
“We think it sets a great standard for long term vacant storefronts”, said BID Director Ralph DiBart. “It also helps present them better for rental which is, of course, the primary objective.”
The resulting first effort, an installation of paintings by Maria Foladori, is spectacular. During the daytime the windows reflect tree tops and the Avalon Towers in the background creating an interesting interplay with the paintings and the reflections in the window. At night the paintings are illuminated with spot lighting.
the New Rochelle BID and Municipal Arts Commission have also displayed a sign describing the project and providing background information on the artist, Maria Foladori.
Based on her visits to Istanbul, Turkey, Maria Foladori created acrylic paintings inspired by decorative architectural tiles that were hand-painted in the ceramic workshops of Iznik (Nicea), Turkey in the 15th to 17th centuries. These Iznik tiles of floral geometric patterns in cobalt blues, pure white and accents of red cover the endless interiors of Ottoman-built, domed mosques and palaces.
On canvas or plywood up to eight feet in length, Foladori enlarges and recombines the traditional stylized flowers. Waves of tulips, twisting saz leaves, rosettes and the fat lotus-like flowers float in compositions of rectangles. The patterns overlap at a variety of scales typical of the original intimate ceramics, Victoria wallpaper and modern graphic signs.
Maria Foladori was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She graduated from the School of Fine Arts Priliadiano. Pueyrredon and then returned to her first alma mater, the School of Visual Arts Regina Pacis, as the printmaking professor. In the 1980s, her delicate paintings and prints
were successfully exhibited as part of Argentine movement of “naive painting”. She immigrated to south Florida in 1989 and focused on photography resulting in several awards and publications. In the last five years, she returned to painting with exhibitions at the Boca Raton Museum of Art and the Cornell Museum of Art. The paintings based on Ottoman tiles were exhibited at the Turkish Cultural Center in
Manhattan in October 2009. She has lived in New Rochelle since 2008.
www.foladori.net