Category: Visual Arts

For Isabella “Isa” Di Bono ’21, the “new normal” of COVID-19 has meant moving home to Tegucigalpa, Honduras, and finding ways to make art without a studio.

The ability to explore freely is essential to Di Bono, whose path to an art major wasn’t a straight one, just an obvious one. She enrolled at Notre Dame intending to major in economics but figured out after just a couple of classes that the major just didn’t interest her.

She intended to minor in studio art from the beginning but as she got deeper into her art coursework, it became clear that she needed to switch majors. Until she got to Notre Dame, Di Bono considered art a hobby, a passion she could pursue on the side. She took foundational art courses in her first few semesters. Later on, electives introduced her to different mediums, like photography, ceramics, printmaking, and bookmaking.

Now a senior, Di Bono has a BFA thesis to plan. She is working on a concept around the work she gravitates toward naturally—large-scale abstract paintings. She starts with oils or acrylics and sometimes weaves in spray paint or drawing. Di Bono’s abstracts usually measure five-by-five feet, nearly as tall as she is.

For her thesis, Di Bono will work closely with her mentor, painting professor Maria Tomasula, Michael P. Grace Professor of Art and director of graduate studies. Each BFA student forms a relationship with a professor who mentors them through the thesis process. Tomasula will guide Di Bono through her work, the refinement of her artist statement, and preparation to exhibit on campus next year. On campus, BFA students also make use of studio space for their thesis and receive a stipend for materials when their project is approved.

Born in East Chicago, Indiana, Maria Tomasula is an active part of the Chicago art scene. She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Illinois at Chicago, and then continued her education at Northwestern University, where she earned a Masters degree in Fine Arts. She is currently Professor of Art at the University of Notre Dame.

Her recent solo exhibitions include shows at Forum Gallery in New York and in Los Angeles, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis and at the National Museum of Mexican Art, Chicago. Her work was also included in Larger than Life: Women Artists Making it Big at Susquehanna Art Museum in Harrisburg PA (2003); Nuestras Historias, Stories of Mexican Identity at the National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago (2014); The Female Gaze at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia;Obsessive Drawing at Delaware Center for Contemporary Arts (2001); Timely and Timeless at the Aldrich Museum in Connecticut (1994) and Transitional Objects: Contemporary Still Life at the Neuburger Museum of Art, Purchase College, New York (2006–07).

With striking color and theatrical compositions, Tomasula’s artwork is influenced by an aesthetic of the Mexican diaspora, especially of altar painting, as well as by ‘new materialist’ writers. As an artist she seeks to create images that give visual form to the elusive sensation of being, of embodiment, and of relation with the world. She brings simple objects such as fruit and flowers together to create metaphorical, poetic works. The seemingly inanimate objects take on the vibrancy of evocative, sensual characteristics.

Turner began studying art in her teens from noted local painters. She then left Wyoming to attend the University of Notre Dame, majoring in Studio Arts. She spent an influential semester in Rome, Italy and then studied at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington D.C. Turner now has a Master’s degree from the University of Virginia.

Having been passionate about painting since childhood, Turner is now nationally recognized with top honors from the American Impressionist Society and the National Academy of Equine Art and the Southeast Wildlife Exposition as the 2017 Featured Artist. Her work has been showcased in the National Museum of Wildlife Art, the Charlie Russell Museum, the Buffalo Bill Cody Center of the West, The Phippen Museum, the Brinton Museum and the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum. Turner has been recognized as Wyoming Best Watercolor Artist in 2001 by the Wyoming Watercolor Society and was included in SouthwestArt Magazine’s “Annual Profile of Young Artists with Promising Careers.”

Turner believes that growing up in Grand Teton National Park, a place with such dramatic light and natural composition, gave her an intimate appreciation for art. “I believe the valley of Jackson Hole evokes expression,” says Turner. She now travels all over the world to paint. With watercolors and oil paints, Turner responds with visual contemplations of beauty in hopes of sharing this love of the sublime with others through her work.

Turner also owns and features her work at Turner Fine Art Gallery in Jackson Hole, Wyoming – a simple and uplifting space where she shares her own work as well as hosting that of other top artists from around the world.