BEYOND SILENCE | Featured Art

FEATURED ART

Silent Spring art installation, video by Vittorio Marrucci

BEYOND SILENCE

Even in the darkest of our times, beauty, determination and the light of reason are the deep orientation of our soul. Our fragility is what forges us humans, pushing us to become stronger, to fight for our beliefs and freedom. Pursuing an alternative state of mind - made of resilience and resistance, rather than following a futile attempt to erase our concerns and fears, makes us more conscious of our life’s core meaning. In such a severe time, whereas the sleep of reason has produced monsters, art and its history provide us with retrospection and a healing gift.

SILENT SPRING

ART INSTALLATION IN PALAZZO BONOMINI

With the renovation and expansion of our Gallery interiors, as we recompose our annual exhibition we say farewell to our kernel, the art installation SILENT SPRING, featuring the works of Alain Bonnefoit, Yoshimi Futamura and Olga Niescier.

Conceived during a long time of preternatural isolation and solitude due to the world pandemic crisis, Niescier’s painting Silent Spring #1 acts as a tribute to Nature and a celebration of natural life, feelings of intimacy, silence and solitude. Set before it, a delicate female figure takes centre stage. Curled-up in a fetal position, Bonnefoit’s Cristina fosters a search for introspection and necessary isolation, guarded and flanked by two Futamura’s raku ceramic sculptures from the series Black Hole. These two last pieces are the result of the emotional impact of the 2011 Tsunami on the artist's soul. They are about the fear of the uncertain, like a force beyond our control threatening to extinguish everything, even our desire for rebirth.

Indeed desires are the seeds of action, and do serve as the motive force for rebirth. At KALPA, we strongly believe in the path of transformation, standing for the necessity of peace and hope.

FEATURED ARTWORKS

SILENT SPRING #1

Olga Niescier

"Silent Spring", a series of paintings, is a symphony of materials and light nuanced, from whites and mauves to browns. In Niescier’s oeuvre, micro and macro representations of Nature become the artist’s inner journey towards a sense of self-consciousness and reconciliation with the Universe. The dense texture characteristic of her artworks is achieved by skilful and patient application of layers of acrylic paint, inks, pastels, powder pigments, oil colours, and at times also dried herbs. The artworks for "Silent Spring" are sculpted and engraved as well as splattered and dripped. The interlacing of the built up layers produces the final vibrating colour and the three-dimensional effect of the paintings.

258h x 156w x 6d cm
101 3/4 h x 61 1/2 w x 2 1/2 d in

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BLACK HOLE 2018 #1

Yoshimi Futamura

Using a blend of stoneware clays and a mixture of fired and raw granulated porcelain, Futamura creates the textured, geological forms in Raku ceramic for which she is internationally known. Her use of naturally occurring textures is combined with traditional shapes, creating unique works of art. Through this innovative process, this exceptional Japanese artist reveals the power inherent within her medium.

30h x 55w x 55d cm
11 3/4 h x 21 1/2 w x 21 1/2 d in

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CRISTINA

Alain Bonnefoit

The white delicate sculpture "Cristina" shows Bonnefoit’s characteristically sensuous and elegant depictions of the female form. Painter, engraver and sculptor, he is one of the most highly acclaimed painters of nudes working today. In his forty-year career, the French artist has experimented with the most varied means of expression: mixed techniques on canvas paper, oil painting, original lithograph and engraving, elegant sumi-e and sculpture.

33h x 60w x 60d cm
13h x 23 1/2 w x 23 1/2 d in

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SILENT SPRING #3

Olga Niescier

Niescier's paintings are executed on a strong canvas made of natural vegetable fibre jute. Its bold weaving supplies the base for an antique preparation: a mixture of alabaster powder, rise amylum and linseed oil. The resulting surface has a rich feeling, a natural colour, and a remarkable resistance. The whole process strives to reproduce the organic growth of nature, in its patient creation and in its multitude and complexity of forms and sensations.

176,5h x 77w x 5d cm
69 1/2 h x 30 1/5 w x 1 3/4 d in

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BLACK HOLE 2019 #1

Yoshimi Futamura

Futamura's work references both modern and classical themes in Japanese ceramics. Her practice can be read within the concept of wabi sabi, or imperfect beauty, and the irregularity of her pieces only increases their meditative quality. Because of the high temperature of the firing, the texture of her artworks in Raku ceramic may appear burned, crushed, or speckled with fine granules. The deep cavities in this particular series seem on the brink of sinking into collapse.

42h x 40w x 36d cm
16 1/2 h x 15 3/4 w x 14 1/4 d in

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FEATURED ARTIST

OLGA NIESCIER

THE MEDITATIVE EXPLORATION OF NATURE'S STRUCTURES

In Olga Niescier’s artistic vision, the study of Nature and its scenery becomes an inner journey and a way to express a sense of self and one’s relation to the universe.

Since 2001, Niescier has been propelled along an intense interdisciplinary artistic activity, integrating design and research in visual arts. Painting is the field in which the artist expresses herself with the most passion and dedication. Niescier’s art is permeated by a spiritual approach that can be traced to the historical tradition of Asian landscape painting, with her added insight into botanical micro-universes and her personal encounter with Zen philosophy and abstract impressionism.

Plants, herbs, paints and the artist’s physical movements merge together in a unified creative act. The spontaneous confluence of delicacy and passion emerges stroke by stroke through gestures, both slow and vigorous, while the choice of the natural materials, in this case real flower petals, is part of an intuitive dialogue with the surrounding nature, without following any precise line or premeditation.

Don’t be confused by the surface; in the depths everything becomes law (...)

- Rainer Maria Rilke