In the Sicilian Countryside, Lola Montes Schnabel Creates Luminous Ceramics Out of Volcanic Clay

Walking through Cirica, an exhibition of new ceramic-based paintings and sculptures by the artist Lola Montes Schnabel, at New York’s Vito Schnabel Gallery, second glances reveal a rich and referential world of meaning hiding just below the surface of her creations. In one sculpture, at a certain angle, a winged woman, faceless, like the Victory of Samothrace, appears. In a wall sculpture, glazed in yellows and reds and blue, Piet Mondrian’s Modernist compositions appear. In others, the work of Lucio Fontana. Mythical and literary stories surface alongside—and the mind conjures up scenes of gods feasting on grapes or artichokes or warriors battling in tangled scenes.