Exhibition Opening: Breaking Walls an emigrant/immigrant journey through Southern Italy: Paintings and Ceramics by William Papaleo

"Over twenty years ago, William Papaleo moved to Naples to practice the art he had learned in the U.S. A third-generation U.S. American with ancestors from Italy, Papaleo is different from most Italian American artists who use Italy to set up a sense of the past and reconnect to it through travel. Their art, more oſten than not focuses on the family and their own reactions to retiring to the home of their ancestors. What you find in Papaleo’s art is something new, something all other Italian Americans have not dealt with, and that is the role of the immigrant in today’s Italy. It is through art like this work, that we can we reach beyond the real, and sometime we even achieve the impossible."

--from Distinguished Professor Fred Gardaphe's exhibition catalogue essay