THE ARTIST
Gianna Dispenza’s paintings, drawings, and sculptures focus largely on collective routine. She uses widely shared habits—like eating, sitting, and embracing—to interrogate the complexity and variety of interior experiences. Her work questions how multiple contexts can redefine a single subject, and calls attention to the infinite arrangements of these pairings and interpretations. Largely informed by byproducts of relocation and adaptation, Gianna’s work seeks to understand social conventions through counterpoints, uncanny pairings, and crossbred traditions. 

THE RESIDENCY
During her time at BAR, Dispenza created and exhibited a variety of works, from painting to drawing, and video. Downstairs in BAR’s ground-floor space, she ran a video piece composed of 21 mono-prints that ran on loop. In the main studio, she exhibited a large oil on linen  painting titled Feast III. The work describes three women crouched beneath a richly garnished table; a towering cake and lobsters among the many delicacies. While maintaining the viewer’s gaze, each woman reaches a hand up from under the table and towards the feast. Adjacent to Feast III, Gianna displayed a number of preliminary studies for the work and a wall of framed drawings on paper. 
Throughout her time at BAR, Gianna often used herself as a model, making it ambiguous whether the subjects in her work—almost all females—are autobiographical or speak to more general issues. Repetition, functions of daily life, and an emphasis on female subjects were central themes throughout Gianna’s residency.