Ileana Mendola

This monograph presents the artistic production of Ileana Mendola (b.1926, Catania) from the 1940s to the present day, from the first strictly figurative oil paintings, to her paintings on jute, from the so-called “decorative” works to the Informal season which coincided with her most intense production period. In this phase, which began in 1975, she abandoned traditional techniques and began experimenting with a process of manipulating materials. Even though she never strayed far from her family environment in her long life, she still managed to create an important body of work through which it is possible to read the changes in the time spent. The artist never separated herself from a strongly feminine tendency in her work, always moved self-assuredly in the wake of a high-level artistic investigation, and over time the gamble of her unusual techniques allowed her to emerge in a simple and in some ways unwitting way, which today lets us place her work within the Informal panorama of the late 20th century. Her legacy reveals a strong character as an artist but also as a cultural animator: in fact, for a decade – between 1981 and 1991 – she directed the Contemporary Art Information Centre (CIAC) created in the studio of her father Carmelo Mendola in Catania, an atmospheric, evocative place where today the activity of the Carmelo & Ileana Mendola Cultural Association carries on.

Contents
Painting by sewing
Antonio D'Amico

The island within an island
Nicoletta Boschiero

Lentils in white spirit
Sabina Zappalà

Catalogue
Nota al catalogo

List of works

Appendix