PAUL FABOZZI’S EXHIBITION “PASSAGES OF SHADOW”
FROM VISITING RESIDENCE TO THE DISPLAY OF ARCHITECTURAL VISIONS
FOR LUCERA, CAPITAL OF CULTURE IN APULIA 2025 (ITALY)
GREAT SUCCESS AT THE OPENING VERNISSAGE
Walking presupposes that with each step, the world changes in some aspect and that something in us changes as well (Italo Calvino, The Thousand Gardens)
In May 2024, the Rotary Club of Lucera welcomed New York-based artist and university professor Paul Fabozzi to explore the landscapes and atmospheres of Daunia. A year later, those impressions take form in the exhibition Passages of Shadow, a visual journey born from the encounter between the artist’s international gaze and the region’s profound soul. The exhibition was opened yesterday, Saturday, June 14, at the Utò Gallery, located at Via Pignatelli 14 in Lucera (Foggia province, Italy). The opening vernissage saw significant public participation. The artistic event, which will open to visitors from June 15 to 17, between 7:30 PM and 9:00 PM, is part of the official program supported by the Municipality of Lucera for Lucera’s Capital of Culture in Puglia 2025.
Passages of Shadow, organized by the association Utò – The Space of Light, is the first public exhibition stemming from the Visiting Artist Residence project initiated by APS Moves. As of today, June 7, through June 21, the project will also host Italo-American photographer Michael Marfione between Lucera and the Monti Dauni. A unique opportunity to be captivated by the evocative power of contemporary art, capable of translating into vision the quiet charm of a region that continues to inspire artists from around the world.
From places crystallized in time to artistic evolution through printmaking, this exhibition is a fusion of locations, spaces, artistic approaches, territories, and minds. Drawing from his immersive 2024 experience in Daunia, Paul Fabozzi, currently a professor of Art and Visual Design at St. John’s University in New York, produced 23 works that reflect his conceptual interpretation of the places he encountered. These “pieces,” created upon his return to his Long Island studio, encapsulate the essence of his Passages of Shadow and will be unveiled at the intimate Utò Gallery on June 14.
For his creative process, Fabozzi began with digital graphic renderings of captured spaces. His signature technique involves photographing hidden corners of the territory and the shadows cast by buildings, then digitally transferring and assembling them through a sensory exploration of the area. The final artworks are physically rendered using ink and colored pencil on Mylar film, mounted over archival pigment prints. The exhibition will also feature a unique collaborative piece, a fusion of techniques by Paul Fabozzi and Daunian master Salvatore Lovaglio. This work exemplifies a cultural cross-pollination between two artists – American and Italian – who discovered a shared passion through their dedication to art. In this collaboration, Fabozzi’s graphic-painting style was reimagined on a metal plate, upon which Professor Lovaglio executed the engraving. The final print, brought to life using intaglio ink, felt, sandpaper, the engraved plate, dampened paper, and a press, enriches the offering of Passages of Shadow.
“During a two-week stay in spring 2024, I walked the evocative streets of Lucera, an ancient hill town in Puglia inhabited for millennia,” explains Prof. Fabozzi. “My walks, often in the early morning or the stillness of the afternoon, led me to observe glimmers projected onto buildings and streets, creating ephemeral yet powerful geometries. These fleeting yet tangible shadows became the starting point for my creative process. After photographing them, I took those impressions back to my New York studio, where I layered lines, opaque geometries, and ink drips over the forms, exploring the space between fullness and void. I chose a minimal visual language and an intimate format (28 x 21.5 cm) to invite the viewer to draw near and observe closely”.
From Fabozzi’s impressions, Passages of Shadow represents “a series that interweaves tactility and vision, offering an invitation to grasp the temporality of Lucera and Daunia-within a fleeting moment that can be ‘touched with the eyes’, awakening the desire to rediscover presence in daily life through the wonder of light”.
Paul Fabozzi was born in 1965 in Amsterdam, New York, an industrial town along the Erie Canal, historically home to generations of Italian Americans. His paintings and works on paper have been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions in New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Rome, Busan, and other cities. His work is held in several public and private collections, including the Weatherspoon Art Museum, the San Diego Museum of Art, the Neuberger Museum of Art, the Frost Museum of Art, the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, and the New York Public Library.
Paul Fabozzi has received various awards, including a fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts and the Café Royal Cultural Foundation. He edited an anthology of writings on contemporary art titled Artists, Critics, Context: Readings in and around American Art since 1945, published by Prentice-Hall. He currently serves as Professor of Fine Arts and Chair of the Department of Art and Design at St. John’s University in Queens, New York.