A-COMPOSIZIONE N. 08-2022 80 X 80 CM

gianna zanafredi

materia memoria annuncio

7 - 20 October 2022

From 7th to 20th October spazioarte shows a selection of neverer works by the painter Gianna Zanafredi, who lives in Parma.

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Gianna Zanafredi was born and raised in Casalmaggiore, a small town on the Po River in the province of Cremona. After studying sociology at the University of Trento, she later attended the Paolo Toschi Art Institute in Parma. Since then she has lived in this city and has her studio there.

Over the past 20 years her work has been featured in several solo and group exhibitions, including in Parma, Paris, Prague, the Venice Biennale (2011) and in Chicago at the International Biennial of Contemporary Art at the Zhou Brothers Art Center (2013).

The following translated excerpts from an interview from Piero Del Giudice's book, 'Materia memoria annuncio. L'opera di Gianna Zanafredi', Mantova 2017, provide information about the author and impressions of the painting technique, themes and poetics in her work.

"When I started art school in 1993, I already had some experiences behind me: sociology studies, marriage, motherhood, divorce. (...). I had no knowledge of art and had never held a pencil in my hand. With some teachers I soon got together. I was supposed to trace objects: bottles, plaster sculptures, a shoe... But I started with the informal right away and I still paint abstractly today. The artists who interested me were Rauschenberg, Rothko, Pollock, Tápies , artist of the 1950s. But there was no one who inspired me in particular. I couldn't say who is closest to me. Among the Italians, certainly Alberto Burri."

"I prepare the canvas base with a filler made of plaster, glue and sometimes sand and strips of wood. I don't like a smooth surface, I prefer a rough and moving one that can be scratched and changed. This base is often made up of several layers. (. ..) On the ground thus formed from different materials I work with sponges, with my hands, with spatulas and for retouching with small brushes.After the skeleton, the structure of the material has completely dried out, I operate with the colors.First a white one Acrylic base, then very diluted oil paints. Finally bitumen, diluted or undiluted, poured through a sieve. After that I remove the stains, or leave them and scratch until the work corresponds to my idea".

"I develop my paintings starting from an initial idea. As the work progresses, new thoughts and other figures are mixed with this idea. (...) I draw on a sheet of paper very simple preliminary sketches with a few strokes and add annotations. I follow a thought, an idea. But the canvas is more practice than an idea, the image appears as you work with your hands and with the colors. The initial idea is there, but only as an intention. It changes, takes shape, becomes figuration."

"The matter in my paintings is life, history, dust, earth, water and landscape. Limited landscape, without a wide horizon. Scraped, weathered walls - with traces and signs of those who lived in these houses. (...) That Image points to a dimension beyond the place, the roots. In search of a universal meaning".