candida
ferrari
"secret transparency"
6 May to 6 June 2021
curated by
Stefania Provinciali and
Luca Temolo Dall’Igna
the artworks
On display are fifteen works created by the artist over the last twenty years. The expression of research into materials and light. Light together with materials, acetate and plexiglass, layers of iridescent sheets, made of gold and silver, but also combinations of PVC, rubber, copper, bitumen, often crossed by "pieces" of colour, superimposed so as to create unexpected visual effects, are the foundation, in their absolute uniqueness, of each painting, each installation, each artist's book.
(Stefania Provinciali)
the artist
As an artist, you have always lived in the future, making paintings and using materials that are now considered avant-garde, but which you have been working with since your early days. There is often talk of the transparency of plastics, Plexiglas and acetate sheets, and rightly so. However, her works must be seen with a fine palate, perceiving the shadows created by overlaps and folds, but above all savouring the almost invisible marks created on the skilfully painted and processed surface. And so a myriad of colours develop in a rainbow that changes according to the angle of your gaze.
(Luca Temolo Dall’Igna)
"secret transparencies op.1" acrylic on acetate and bitumen on iridescent sheets, 51 3⁄16in x 78 47⁄64in
Born in Parma, Candida Ferrari has had a close relationship with Milan since her academic years.
A student of Guido Ballo, she approached the work of Atanasio Soldati, on whom she did her thesis.
In the 1970s he joined the conceptual and kinetic art movements of the Milanese area, proposing his ideas in the cultural panorama of Parma, a city that was very lively in those years with research theatres and galleries attentive to new artistic developments.
He then began his research into plastic materials, especially transparent Plexiglas, which he continued to use over time, moving out of interiors and into urban spaces and the landscape with light installations.
Extracted from the canvas and projected in historically characterised urban environments, such as Domitian's stadium in Rome and the Chiesa della Steccata in Parma, Candida Ferrari's art light is the possibility to grasp the beyond or the invisible of the place through the immateriality of the media. This light rises from the extension of white in a path towards the centrality of thought. From this last creative configuration the artist elaborates the pictorial passage towards an affirmation of presence in the different luminous conditions.
"Sheet on sheet" 2015 - acetate, acrylic and plexiglass on black sheet 51 3⁄16in x 35 7⁄16in
"light chords"
33 15⁄32in x 41 11⁄32in
acrylic on acetate, 2019
"the measure of time"
50 25⁄64in x 47 1⁄4in
acrylic, bitumen on acetate, 2020
"iridescent"
28 11⁄32in x 40 5⁄32in
Bitumen and acetate on iridescent foil, 2013
Candida Ferrari's story is encapsulated in the dangerous relationship between light, matter-colour, space and sign: a path witnessed by works and exhibitions such as "Struttura e Psicologia della gestalt in Candida Ferrari" curated by Arturo Carlo Quintavalle; "Trasparenze" 1985, Palazzo dei Diamanti (Ferrara) curated by Franco Farina and Roberto Tassi; as in Sant'Ilario (Reggio Emilia) '87 curated by Claudio Cerritelli; "In-out" '91 in Parma (Mazzocchi gallery) curated by Luciano Caramel; "Immaginaria 92" (2nd prize) at Palazzo Durini curated by Achille Bonito Oliva and Daniela Palazzoli; Milan (1993) curated by Walter Guadagnini; Il Monumento ai caduti for the municipality of Vianino, Parma, Rome and New York in Geneva, and later in "Stati del Bianco a Roma e a Taormina"; Milan in the Maria Cilena Gallery; Rome in "Accordi di luce", curated by Vittoria Biasi, at the Stadio Domiziano; then London, Osaka and Hong Kong, Salò, Mantova, Florence, Rome, Milan, in Parma in the Galleria San Ludovico, curated by Giorgio Bonomi.
"transparent light"
91x47x15cm
waste transparent plexiglass, 2020
"the light of lightness"
118 7⁄64in x 1 3⁄8in
Painted Plexiglas rods, 2011
The research is extremely rigorous, open to a manual approach that goes beyond the consistency of the material to open up to the game of free interpretation, to the pleasure of looking and searching within the folds of the composition, a colour, perhaps, certainly the light that changes, modifies perception, like the sword that while piercing, even if only ideally, enters into the folds of being, of the work, and extracts its beauty, its meaning.
"things found"
11 13⁄16in x 3 5⁄32in x 9 1⁄16in
waste plastic and acetate, 2020
"secret transparencies, op.2"
47 1⁄4in x 66 59⁄64in
acrylic, acetate, bitumen on metal foil, 2020
I met Candida Ferrari, thanks to a dear mutual friend, Anna Spagna, during the re-presentation of an exhibition that took place years ago and immediately, as happens to me when I have to place a work of art among the others in an exhibition, I perceived a harmony of thought and immediately placed one of her exhibitions among those I would have liked to do.
SHOWROOM
Milan Via Gaudenzio Ferrari 3
+39 02 39287513
OPEN HOURS
Lun-Sab: 10.30-13 | 16-19 Sunday: close Others by appointment