Bullets For Peace

Paola Bidinelli’s "Bullets For Peace" is an intricate work with environmental implications that go well beyond its painterly assortment of elements. The composition lies somewhere in-between the idiosyncratic assemblages of Joseph Cornell and the Abstract Expressionist crushed car sculptures of John Chamberlain. Like Cornel and Chamberlain, Bidinelli is preoccupied with the creative possibilities of refuse. Can garbage be art, and if so, was it garbage in the first place? Painting is not often thought of as a vocation particularly detrimental to the environment, however, evidenced in the sea of empty paint tubes, the painter’s pigment comes at a cost. Not only is there a great deal of plastic and metal waste from the discarded containers of oil and acrylic, but the very process of paint manufacturing is tremendously poisonous to the environment. As Bidinelli points out, art can be a weapon when pointed in the right direction. It can call attention to what we would otherwise ignore. Let’s hope it does before it’s too late.