VENICE, CA.-Commissary Arts is pleased to announce Wake a solo exhibition featuring new paintings by Angela DeCristofaro. Never regarding an exhibition as a series or completed body of work, DeCristofaro continues the striking visual explorations of her 2006 exhibition entitled, "Totality Shaped Out of Nothing" in Wake. The “Wake” in this sense is “the restlessness that surfaces after a defined action,” explains DeCristofaro.

Much in the vein of the Surrealists, DeCristofaro creates tableaus in which incongruous figures and objects coexist in a dream-like landscape. Her works are a process of excavation. Memories half held in reality filter through a contemporary sensibility, and time collapses. Modern references become relics to a past that has yet to occur, while the old is repurposed in provocative ways.

The people, places, and objects that populate her canvases belie a straightforward narrative reading. Wedding cakes and water towers, leather-clad characters and hybrid machines all share space in her skillfully rendered and richly layered figurative compositions. She describes her work as a reflection of the disjointedness of contemporary culture.

Born in Bari, Italy, DeCristofaro moved with her family to Southern California in the 1970s, fleeing the growing political influence of the Red Brigades. DeCristofaro later returned to Italy to earn her BFA in painting and drawing at L'istituto D'arte e di Restauro, Florence. She has participated in solo and group exhibitions in Los Angeles and is an accomplished photography stylist and set designer. Future projects include set design for the innovative modern dance collective The Holy Body Tattoo.

A reception for the artist will be held on Saturday, March 8 from 6 to 9pm. The exhibition will be on view until April 19, 2008. Commissary Arts is a new gallery space in Venice presenting work by emerging and mid-career Southern California artists through a mix of solo and group exhibitions.

The gallery is located at 68 N. Venice Boulevard, Venice, CA 90291. Gallery hours are Thursday and Friday, 12-pm, Saturdays 12-6pm, and by appointment.