My absorption with collage using torn posters from the streets of Rome evolved to the way I paint and how I observe the world. Rome itself is a visual field of fragments bridging time and space, challenging visual immediacy, requiring the eye to jump and never quite land. I came to trust the connectedness of this incongruity.
— JoAnn Ugolini, August 2026
See recent review of Ugolini’s 2026 solo show at K. Imperial Fine Art in San Francisco by Mark Van Proyen:
https://www.squarecylinder.com/2026/07/joann-ugolini-kimperial-fine-art-san-francisco/
BIO:
JoAnn Ugolini received a BA in 1972 from Mundelein College with her major executed at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Her art career was put on hold during the early years of the Civil Rights Movement. She moved to Berkeley in 1980. From 1984 to 2018, she had eight solo exhibits with Barbara Anderson Gallery in Berkeley. Her work was represented in the 1980s and 90s by Hunsaker Schlesinger Gallery in Los Angeles. Beginning in the 1990s, she painted and produced collages in both California and Rome. Collages were made from posters pulled from Roman streets. In 2004, she exhibited at Pratt Institute in Rome. In 2009, while working as a visiting artist at the American Academy in Rome, in collaboration with the poet, Kathleen Fraser, she had an exhibit of collages and produced an Artist’s Book, S E C O N D Language. The book with original work was acquired by the Beinecke Library at Yale University.
In 2023, her work was included in The DeYoung Open 2023 in San Francisco, CA. In 2023 and 2024 she had exhibits with Eric Rose in Berkeley and Gallery 621 in Benicia.
In 2025 and early 2026, group shows included: Abstracting Nature at The Gallery, Belvedere Tiburon Library in California; the 2026 Great Lakes Drawing Biennial at Eastern Michigan University; and the international group show, New Drawings, at the Kentler International Drawing Space in New York.
In 2026, she had a solo exhibit in San Francisco at K. Imperial Fine Art. The exhibit, Tutti Piccoli Santi (All the Little Saints) was reviewed by Mark Van Proyen, who wrote:
JoAnn Ugolini’s paintings manifest as a burst of swirling colors that overlap into mesh-like configurations that simultaneously coalesce and dissolve…The fluidity of her surfaces is both performative and descriptive, almost as if her brush is dancing the images into being.
Solo
Tutti Piccoli Santi (All the Little Saints), K. Imperial Fine Art, July-August 2026
Between Places, Eric Rose, Berkeley, CA, May-June 2024
My Life as a White Person, Barbara Anderson Gallery, 2018
In Piazza, New Work, Barbara Anderson Gallery, Berkeley, CA, 2012
S E C O N D Language, Constructions in Collaboration, American Academy in Rome exhibit, 2009
Recent Work from the Walls of Rome, Barbara Anderson Gallery, 2008
Nel Paese dei Sogni, collage paintings on paper, Barbara Anderson Gallery, 2000
Dipinti e Disegni, Pratt Institute, drawings and paintings, Rome, Italy, 1999
Faces and Abstractions, collage paintings on paper, Barbara Anderson Gallery, 1997
I Venti/The Winds, paintings/collage on Roman posters, Barbara Anderson Gallery, 1993
Ecco il Momento, paintings/collage on Roman posters, Barbara Anderson Gallery, 1992
Paintings on Paper, Barbara Anderson Gallery, Berkeley, CA, 1984
Selected Group
Seattle Art Fair, July 2026
San Francisco Art Fair, May 2026
New Drawings, Kentler International Drawing Space, Brooklyn, NY, 2025
The DeYoung Open 2023, San Francisco, CA, Nov 2023–Jan 2024
LOOK up, Gallery 621, Benicia, CA, 2024
The Edge and Over, Gallery 621, Benicia, CA, 2023
Now More Than Ever, Pratt Institute, Rome, Italy, 2004
Artists’ Miniatures, small paintings on paper, Graystone Gallery, San Francisco, CA, 2003
Cauldron & Net 2002, Claire Dinsmore, editor, volume 4
Rome Series 2002, paintings and works on paper, Studio di Architectura e Design, 2002
Chicago Art Expo, Chicago, IL, 1987
Monoprints, Chine Collé, Magnolia Editions Gallery, Oakland, CA, 1986
Experimental Printmaking, San Francisco Cameraworks, continuous-tone prints, CA, 1984
World Print Council, Palace of Fine Arts, San Francisco, CA, 1982
Women Writers and Artists – Broadsides, Stanford University, CA, 1981
She currently works in both Berkeley, California, and Rome, Italy.