Catie Byrne
Features Editor

The caption reading: “Colored smoke firework residue on paper,” present on three of Rosemarie Fiore’s works, captures the essence of her inventive and colorful fireworks-inspired art, featured in the “Colossus” exhibit, at the Weatherspoon museum.

Running from Jan. 16 to April 17, “Colossus” is comprised of 16 pieces: 10 of which are framed paintings, while the remaining six works consist of different forms of three-dimensional painted metal trash cans. While entirely different in composition, the paintings and three-dimensional works both showcase different elements of space.

Some of her three-dimensional pieces are decorated with stars and include titles such as: “Smoke Eclipse Tool: Fire Star,” “Smoke Eclipse Tool: Mr. Blue Sky” and “Smoke Eclipse Tool: Asteroid City.” Fiore leaves little doubt that her intended theme throughout “Colossus” is space.

However, this is more subtly communicated in Fiore’s paintings. Multicolored splats of orbs litter a predominantly monochromatic, circular splotch of color on each canvas, producing what could be interpreted to look like moons orbiting planets in space.

Upon closer examination of her paintings, it becomes evident that the orbs featured in these pieces are created through a unique style of layered textured paper, which produces an almost three-dimensional quality, mimicking the style of her metal pieces.

These circles also appear charred and tinted by a myriad of colors through a technique Fiore employs, that literally causes color to explode on the canvas.

As described in the “Colossus” pamphlet, Fiore’s process for creating her paintings involves the use of colored smoke fireworks filled with pigments.

In order to do this, she, “Crafts tools that both hold the smoke canisters and allow her to contain and direct the particles they release. With small versions of these tools, she can work alone, merely tilting her wrist or bending a finger — to guide the smoke across a sheet of paper. With larger tools, she must enlist multiple people to bend, lift and pull together…she selects the color of smoke canister and steers its release, but variances in heat, air current and rates of combustion ensure that its marks defy prediction,” details the pamphlet.

Each painting uniquely reflects this method.

In “Fireworks Drawing #11,” the painting featured as the face of “Colossus,” Fiore’s intricate placement of orbs dominates the canvas, giving the piece a frenetic energy and movement; the orbs look as if they are both colliding and moving apart from each other. Similarly, the explosion of colors creates both gradiated, glittering shades, and distinct patterns of blocked color.

“Fireworks Drawing #26” and “Smoke Painting #37” mimic the composition of “Fireworks Drawing #11,” in that they focus primarily on orbs colliding and moving apart from each other, but differ in that they consist of more orbs of a similar size and solid blocks of color layered together.

“Smoke Eclipse Tool: Colossus” and “Colossus, Smoke Eclipse #4” differ dramatically from the fireworks paintings, as the focus is a solid block of blue in the former and orange in the later. “Smoke Eclipse Tool: Colossus” also only features five orbs, while “Colossus, Smoke Eclipse #4” has four prominent orbs on the outer rings of the block of orange to convey a minimalist appearance.

“Smoke Eclipse #69” and “Smoke Eclipse #46” are also considerably minimalist in comparison to the fireworks paintings. What distinguishes them from “Smoke Eclipse Tool: Colossus” and “Colossus, Smoke Eclipse #4,” however, is that the colors blocks foregrounding the orbs in the paintings include a blend of colors rather than one solid color.

“Colossus, Smoke Eclipse #2” and “Colossus, Smoke Eclipse #6” stand apart from the rest of Fiore’s paintings, as rings of rainbow-colored circles extend beyond the monochromatic color scheme, and primarily eclipse what few orbs are present.

Of these differences in artistic composition, the “Colossus” pamphlet describes Fiore’s current works as more measured and tranquil than her previous pieces. “Until recently, Fiore’s drawings comprised frenetic arrays of dots and dashes, complex fields of marks with vivacious energy. Her more recent paintings, however, offer quieter compositions — just a handful of circular forms appear to hover and pulse rather than dash and dart.”

While Fiore’s earlier “Firework Drawings” were created in New Mexico, and earlier “Smoke Eclipse” in New York, “Colossus” pieces were built at UNCG with the assistance of the Art Department faculty and students.