RAY DICAPUA
During the Stories and Dreams residency at the Four Waters Meeting Point, artist and friend Ray DiCapua shared his passion for both art and cooking. He prepared focaccia for the household, introduced students from the Art High School in Užice to his artistic practice, and shared his extensive experience in playing percussion and working with natural materials like wood and metal with children from the local community. This first visit to Serbia was also an opportunity for conversations about the future reflecting on the long-standing acquaintance and friendship between Jelena and Ray, their different political and class positions, internal struggles, upheavals, and the (non)privilege of two cultures.
“My stay at Four Waters Meeting Point was a multi-faceted, rich experience. I was greeted with a kind of warmth and hospitality that is a supportive presence for that which is generative, that which is good, helpful and hopeful. I was introduced to the richness of the land, to some of the culture and history and to the extended family that shepherds this place and space of hard work, deep heart and mind and story and dreams. It is a dedicated place where our shared potentials can become manifest, some of which are on full display, while others are latent, resting in the fields of capacities we have and choices we make, consciously or otherwise”. – Ray DiCapua
During Ray’s stay, we organized:
*a workshop on making an African musical instrument Kalimba, in which participants had the opportunity to create their own instrument. During this process, they learned tuning techniques and how to work with wood and metal using mechanical tools.
*a visit to the High School of Art, where we introduced an open call for the Four Waters Summer School of socially engaged mural titled How do we discuss our living environments?, and organized an artist talk where Ray and artist and collaborator Jana Danilović were able to share their work with the students.
*a trip to Niš and the Sićevačka gorge, where we visited the Nadežda Petrović Endowment in Sićevo, the site where first art residencies were held across the Balkans, and the 11th Artfemine Festival in Niš, where Jelena Prljević (on behalf of Four Waters and the HEKLER collective) participated in the program. The festival was organized by the Center for Girls in Niš.
*a collective project that involved building a water shaft and making of Focaccia.
Ray DiCapua currently makes large-scale, intricate drawings that investigate the intersections between imagery and processes of perception, recognition, and meaning making, looking to both evoke and disrupt possible patterns of interpretation. His early work included both sculpture and drawing. He wrestled with existential circumstances in modern human experience and was curious about the psychological, political and contemplative tones that specific gestures, archetypal forms and cultural artifacts can arouse. His later work expands on these themes through an interest in the phenomenology of experience as an art making praxis that explores the conditioned aspects of memory, thought and mind.
DiCapua’s exhibitions include many national and international venues. His work has been further supported by grants, awards and fellowships including two MacDowell artist residencies, Millay Artist Colony collaborative residency; Vindolanda Roman Fort/Chesterholm Museum collaborative artist residency, Northumberland, UK.
DiCapua has been a faculty member of the Department of Art/Art History since 1984 and presently serves as co-coordinator of the 3D and sculpture studies area. From 2004-2014, he served as Associate Head for Admissions and Recruitment. In 2014, the Institute for Teaching and Learning named him a University Teaching Fellow, the highest teaching award given to faculty at the University of Connecticut.