press release - villa contemporanea

VILLA CONTEMPORANEA
PRESENTS
into the woods
Antonio Bardino
Lindsey Bull
Valentina D’Amaro
Luca De Angelis
Vera Portatadino
saturday 7 may 2016 from 6.30 pm
Curated by Rossella Moratto
The exhibition runs through 18 June 2016
Tuesday to Saturday from 3 pm to 7 pm
Villa Contemporanea is pleased to present Into the Woods, a group painting exhibition with
artists Antonio Bardino, Lindsey Bull, Valentina D’Amaro, Luca De Angelis, and Vera
Portatadino who share an investigation of nature as a mindscape.
A green tangle of leaves, trees, and shadows, in the woods people can get lost and, at
times, find themselves; an archetypical ritual of initiation and a possible metamorphosis.
Wild, unspoiled nature, the woods represent deep impulses of attraction and repulsion the
artists on exhibit wish to portray. These works are not vistas en plein air or landscape paintings, but instead intimate visions that project upon nature feelings that would otherwise be
impossible to render, if not through metaphor. New romanticism, understood as salvaging
the irrational side of the creative process manifest in a multitude of forms, since there are
many trails in the woods and each person finds his own while exploring the inner being.
Valentina D’Amaro has always chosen landscape as her preferred subject from which to
portray aspects of the world and herself that would otherwise be unseen, obtaining powerful
iconic synthesis, with bold and intense colors and profound symbolic meaning. These are
inner vistas where the material and spiritual dimension meet, striving for the sublime. For
Vera Portatadino nature is the manifestation of precarious and fleeting beauty, which painting is able to depict and immortalize. Evoking the woods is both real and imaginary at the
same time, thus becoming something mysterious that attracts, against all precaution, to the
unknown. Lindsey Bull investigates the human figure and relating restlessness reflected in
nature. Her figures represent repression of the joyful façade of consumerist society, manifested as epiphanic apparitions that could be real or make-believe though always incarnating
the desire to be something “else”.
The man-nature relationship is the focus of Luca De Angelis: his mysterious individuals
that inhabit the darkest recesses of the woods express human limitations with respect to the
abundance of nature but also the deep intimacy of this relationship that goes beyond the
dialectics between outwardness and inwardness. Antonio Bardino paints the boundless
vitality of the woods that seems to exude beyond the physical limits of the canvas. His painting is pure memory tied to the feeling where the reference to reality gradually takes second
stage so as to reinstate the meaning of time that passes, transience, and the ephemerality
of things.
Exhibition and text by Rossella Moratto.
Antonio Bardino was born in Alghero (SS) in 1973. He lives and works in Udine.
His recent shows include: Pittura italiana, CARS, Omegna (VB) curated by Lorenza Boisi, 2015;
Landina, Museo del Paesaggio, Palazzo Biumi Innocenti di Pallanza (VB), curated by Lorenza Boisi,
2015; Premio Rugabella, curated by Fabio Carnaghi, 2015; Naturae mirabilia, curated by Giovanna
Giannini Guazzugli, Sponge Arte contemporanea, Pergola (PU), 2015; La verità dell’artificio, Villa
Marini Rubelli, curated by Carlo Sala, San Zenone degli Ezzelini (TV), 2014; Lost in painting, curated
VIA BERGAMO 20 20900 MONZA MB
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by C. Sala, Villa Brandolini, Pieve di Soligo (TV), 2011; La meglio gioventù, Galleria Comunale,
Monfalcone, curated by Andrea Bruciati, 2010; Il vuoto pneumatico e il mondo reale, curated by
Daniele Capra, SPAC - FVG, Palazzo Orgnani Martina, Venzone (UD), 2009; Premio Lissone, Museo
d’Arte Contemporanea, Lissone (MB), 2010.
Lindsey Bull was born in Hereford, UK, in 1979. She lives and works in Manchester, UK.
Her recent solo exhibitions include: Yellow, Varese, 2015; High House, Oxford, 2013; Motorcade /
Flashparade, Bristol, 2012; Transition Gallery, London, 2012. She has taken part in numerous group
shows in public and private venues in Europe among which at the Centre d’art contemporain de
Quimper, France, 2014. She was awarded the Brenda Landon Pye Prize, 2009, at the Motorcade/
FlashParade National Open, 2011, and she won the prestigious Red Mansion Prize in 2011. Lindsey
Bull is currently an artist with the Liverpool Biennale.
Valentina D’Amaro was born in 1966 in Massa Carrara. She lives and works in Milan. Some of her recent solo shows are: Vespro, Dimora Artica, Milan, 2015, Naturale Irrealtà, Palazzo
Parasi, Cannobio, 2014; Diàlogo entre paisajes, N2 Galerìa, Barcelona, 2013.
Her groups shows include: Pitture di Paesaggio, Museo Biumi Innocenti, Verbania (2015); Upward
Positive Leaders: Drawings from Lighting, Kunstverein Neukolln, Berlin, 2014; Landina, Palazzotto
d’Orta, Orta San Giulio; Biennale Italia-Cina, Villa Reale Monza, 2012; 54ma Biennale di Venezia,
Padiglione Italia Regione Lombardia; Palazzo Te, Mantua; Una forza del passato, Hangar-7,
Salzburg, 2009; Nuovi Pittori della Realtà, PAC, Milan, 2007; Expanded Painting, Prague Biennale,
Karlin Hall, Prague, 2005.
Finalist in 2010 for the Sovereign European Art Prize, Barbican Centre, London.
Winner in 2005 of the 6° Premio Cairo. She was part of the prestigious publication Vitamin P3. New
Perspectives in Painting, Phaidon Press, which will be issued in October 2016.
Luca De Angelis was born in 1980 in San Benedetto del Tronto (AP). He lives and works in San
Benedetto del Tronto (AP).
His recent solo exhibitions include: Portrait of a man, Remont Gallery, Belgrade, Serbia 2015; Il
regime dell’imagine, Scatolabianca, Milan, 2014.
Some group shows are: Il Nocciolo della questione, Museo Bodini di Gemonio, 2016; Piccolo
compendio d’istruzione di pittura Vol. II, Galleria Bianconi, Milan, 2016; Pitture di Paesaggio, Museo
Biumi Innocenti, Verbania, 2015; Pittura Contemporanea Italiana, CARS, Omegna, 2015; Heads,
Yellow, Varese, 2015; Der bilderatlas, Dimora artica, Milan, 2015; #Pittura, Galleria Giuseppe Pero,
Milan, 2014; Depot, Casa Cavazzini, Udine, 2014; Simplegadi, Artcore gallery, Bari, 2013; The name
the nose, Museolaboratorio, Città Sant’Angelo (PE), 2013.
In 2014 he won the Premio Special under 35 of Premio Combat. In 2013 he was given first prize in
the emerging art section of the Premio Fondazione Francesco Fabbri.
Vera Portatadino was born in Varese in 1984. She lives and works in Varese.
Some recent exhibitions inlcude: Il Nocciolo della questione, Museo Bodini di Gemonio, 2016; The
Names, Transition Gallery, London, 2016; Zoon, Castello di Abbiategrasso, 2015; Pitture di paesaggi,
Museo del Paesaggio, Verbania, 2015; Pittura Contemporanea Italiana, CARS, Omegna, 2015; Spazi
(solo show), MARS, Fabbrica del Vapore, Milan, 2015; Heads, Yellow, Varese, 2015; Der Bilderatlas,
Dimora Artica, Milan, 2015; Buongiorno Ceramica!, Midec Museo Internazionale Design Ceramico,
Cerro di Laveno, 2015; Elsewhere – Altrove, riss(e) + Transition Gallery of London, Varese, 2015; La
Casa dei Fantasmi, curated by Museo Teo, Milan, 2014; With A Little Help From My Friends, MA*GA
Museum, Gallarate, 2013.
In 2015 she was invited to take part in the residency Landina, curated by Lorenza Boisi for CARS,
Omegna. In 2014 she participated in the residency Licht und Luft. Elementi di Utopia, CARS,
Omegna, and in Spazi Liberi, Udine, 2014. In 2014 she opened Yellow, artist-run space in Varese,
as part of Zentrum.
VIA BERGAMO 20 20900 MONZA MB
TEL +39 039 384963
VILLA CONTEMPORANEA
[email protected]
WWW.VILLACONTEMPORANEA.IT