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by Marilena Pasquali On approaching Patrizia Bartoletti's sculptures
one immediately senses the silence, or rather one enters the silence and
is enwrapped in it as though suspended between the age of archetypes and
an alien new age, divested of garlands, perfumes and rainbows.
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| In every one of her images Patrizia
reveals an autentic state of attraction - repulsion for the geometrical
purity of the form, a form she has captured and imprisoned in the icy surfaces
but which is also disturbed and contaminated in those body-drapes that
seem to slip away seeking more hospitable shadows perhaps more merciful
towards their slumber.
Wrappings devoid of meaning, cocoons from which the butterfly has escaped, matter touched by a lambent flame that has rendered it as soft as wax, thus appear the most recent inhabitants of the petrified world of the sculptress; the guardian transforms themselves into empty shrouds, upright and proud, almost as though an insidious contagion was weakening the strength and undermining the certainties But in this there lies no defeat or relinquishment, it is more the conscious, painful acceptance of the human condition, harsh, teory, almost suffocating yet worth living in every instant to the end, to the last breath. And the abyss of the emotions, the whirlpool of desires become imprisoned in the form in order to dominate - or at least tollerate them - allowing through the fine mesh of closed structures only a few shreds of flesh and blood to escape. |
LUNA - cm 70 x 50 x 35 |
LA TERRA E LE COMETE - 1990 - cm 90 x 35 x 30 |
From the theosophic temptations
in the Mandala of some seasons ago and the junghian influences in the Priests
(Sacerdoti) and the Hierophants, Patrizia has come to the Thrones (Troni)
lit by extiguished stars, luminous spirals, signs of the divine contained
in the matter as though ammonites in the rock.
On looking closely, however, more than thrones of proud power, her monuments in miniature reveal themselves to be altars to ancient deities for sacrificial offerings, sepulchres on which rests a cast off garment like a shroud. The proceedings are solemn and in the still air one perceives only a resonance that is impossible to grasp, an echo of gloomy and deep sounds that vibrate and for a fleeting moment bring the matter back to life. Jose' Saramago, in that dazzling metaphor on existence that is his "Blindness" observes ".....the image do not see ? No, they see through the eyes that see them." If so - and I am convinced of it - then what do they see an feel and suffer, these guardians of the void, abandoned to their and our silence? |
Biographical NotesShe was self employed and took interest in art and ceramics, specializing after a two year course of Design and Planning at the Ballardini Institute of Ceramics Arts in Faenza. In 1986 received a degree from the Accademia di Belle Arti in Bologna studying with Professors Ghermandi and Baccilieri, and began her profession of sculptress. After three years, spent teaching at the high school, she returned to independent work concerning herself with restoration and preservation of "objets d'art", and after a series of exibitions, in 1998 began to work as Research and Design consultant for a major Artistic Ceramics factory. Betwen 1994 and 1998 she had solo exibitions at the Arte Fiera of Bologna and at the Falchi Gallery in Levico Terme. In 1999 she took part in a joint exibition at the L'Ariete Gallery in Bologna. At present she lives and works in her farm in Casal Fiumanese. |
FIGURA SULLA SOGLIA - 1992 - cm 47 x 27 x 36 |