Artwork Description
Monica Lundy – Adelfa
Dimensions: 36 x 28″ framed / 30 x 22″ unframed
Year: 2017
Medium: coffee, gouache, burned paper and charcoal
on Khadi paper
From Lundy’s Deviance series
By using coffee, burned paper and charcoal on handmade paper, Lundy focuses on portraiture of inmates from the Psychiatric Hospital of Sant’Antonio Abate, continuing her investigation on the incarceration of Italian women and girls during the era of Mussolini.
This project began in 2017 during Lundy’s residency at the American Academy in Rome, where she began working collaboratively with Dr. Annacarla Valeriano, a historian from the Foundation of the University of Teramo. Through researching medical documents from the psychiatric hospital archives of Sant’Antonio Abate di Teramo, Dr. Valeriano has been discovering the stories of daughters, mothers, wives, and lovers who were deemed incapable or unfit to partake in society—decided in effect of the Fascist Regime, and were therefore forced in the hospital.