Far But Close - Issue 3 - January 2021

FAR BUT CLOSE

JANUARY 2021

ISSUE 03

www.florencecontemporary.com Email: florencecontemporary@gmail.com Facebook: Florence Contemporary Gallery Instagram: florence_contemporary_gallery Published by Florence Contemporary Gallery 2021 Š All right reserved.

Statement Since its foundation, Florence Contemporary Gallery has been an artistic dissemination platform that presents a selection of carefully selected contemporary artists, through our initiatives we have built, and continue to increase our community of artists, curators, collectors and art lovers.

I would like to thank all the artists who have applied, works have arrived from all over the world despite the difficult times due to the Covid-19 pandemic, art has not stopped and through this catalog we want to suggest some artists to keep under control during this new year that we hope will lead us towards the end of this bad period.

As with any art form, especially visual art, there are many ways an artist can bring a work to life, in this edition we explore some of these different art forms and hope you admire the various techniques used, also through the pages of this catalog, art in its conglomerate of forms has the power to stop us in our tracks, flood our minds with different emotions and does not push us to achieve the impossible, therefore, savor it with us , absorb the emotion portrayed in the selected works.

Welcome to Far But Close.

Michele Morelli FCG curator

Index Eri Kato

6

Marzena Turek Gas

8

Mario Molins

12

Alessio Lucarini

14

Kaoru Shibuta

16

Christian Door

18

Andrea Badillo Sariñana

22

Ariel Lavian

24

Francesca Brivio

26

Hassiba Kessaci

30

Kriston Banfield

32

Faiá Martins

34

Ulyana Korol

38

Craig Jaster

40

Caroline Wade

42

Mediha Sevinc

46

Ricardo Candia

48

Romina Schimpf

50

Lena Zak

52

Simone Ferguson

56

Charlie Haydn Taylor

58

François-Xavier Laloi

60

Surabhi Chowdhary

64

Steve Jensen

66

Marilena Ramadori

68

VĂ­ctor Manuel HernĂĄndez Castillo

72

Luciano Caggianello

74

Francesco De Lorenzo

76

Isobel Church

80

Juno Jou

82

Lacuna

84

Joyce Camilleri

86

Manuel Delgado

90

Maxime Jean Lefebvre

92

Vassilis Vassiliades

94

Manu Romeiro

98

Sally de Courcy

100

Enrico Valeruz

104

Sofianna Lekou

106

Mitoshka Alkova

110

Sara Carpentieri

112

Carla Piacenza

116

Nadja Shkirat

118

Santiago Robles

122

Alaric Hobbs

126

Sofya Danilova

128

Kevser Atalay

132

Valeria Gai

134

Benjamin Uggla

136

Mary Badalian

140

Giulia Pellegrini

142

Zahra Jafarpour

146

Vesna Dobricic

148

Eri Kato Statement I was born and raised in Japan.

My task as an artist is to reconstruct the things which has become unnecessary in daily life and create a new value out of those things.

I mostly utilize discarded materials, such as used cardboard boxes, packaging boxes and any materials that are made from papers. I get a lot of inspiration from the texture, form, color, and smell of them.

I handled the things in my childhood with greatest care. As time goes by, I have accumulated many things because there are many products to choose from. Various things changed, the demands changed some thing has been removed.

I felt a strong sense of incongruity.

I would like to give new and improved lives to those discarded materials..

I believe in the importance and splendor of imagination, and it makes my art stand out in the artistic world.

Site: eri-kato.jimdosite.com Email: e.factory7575@gmail.com Instagram: erikato_art Facebook: erikato7575

6 | Florence Contemporary Gallery

Drawings 2020-12 mixed media (used cardboard boxes) 41Ă— 67cm 2020

Florence Contemporary Gallery | 7

Marzena Turek Gas She lives and works in Warsaw. The painting method by Marzena Turek consists in the use of roller skates instead of the traditional brush: sliding over the canvas, the artist creates colorful lines and stripes which follow her sinuous movement.

Through this method, the artwork becomes a track of energy and dynamism of its creator: not more a simple lifeless object, its nature is brought to life conveying feelings of vitality and vibrancy.

In 2020 she earned PhD degree in Fine Arts at the Jan Kochanowski University in Kielce. In 2001 she obtained the title of Master of Arts at the Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow, the Faculty of Graphics in Katowice, and a diploma in the Graphic Design and Painting studio. In 1992, she defended her diploma thesis in the speciality of Utility Forms in the field of Artistic Furniture at the Józef Chełmonski State Secondary School of Fine Arts in Nałeczów.

She is creator 2D and 3D designs based upon interaction of colour, form and surface. She uses various techniques. In her actions and installations is extending notion of painting, involving in her creation process the whole space of the gallery or urban space. Her works are present in many private collections and art institutions in Poland and abroad.

See more: https://marzenaturek.com/exhibitions Site: marzenaturek.com Email: art@marzenaturek.com Instagram: marzena_turek_

Ultracobalt on canvas Monumental photo action on three levels: the ground, the boom and the drone. My body which is visible on the canvas shows the scale of the picture. On photo large work “By night” Acrylic on unprimed canvas 1000 x 2000 cm, painted with the use roller skates at the Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw, Poland 2007.

Photography 42 x 63 cm 2016

8 | Florence Contemporary Gallery

Red point in motion Print, Photo Paper 70 x 50 cm Composition selected from large canvas in 2020

Florence Contemporary Gallery | 9

Canvas No. II/4 Cobalt and Orange, Acrylic on Unprimed Canvas, 2 nd edition with Large Scale Canvas 200m2 Painted in Motion with use Roller-Skates in the Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw, Poland 2007 285 x 200 cm (5, 7 m² selected with 200 m²) Composition selected from large canvas in 2016

10 | Florence Contemporary Gallery

Canvas No. III /3 Red and Green, Acrylic on Unprimed Canvas, The Unique, Large Scale Canvas 150 m2 Painted in Motion with use Roller-Skates in 3 rd edition took place in the Laznia Centre for Contemporary Art in Gdansk 2009 235 x 320 cm (7, 52 m² selected with 150 m²) Composition selected from large canvas in 2016

Florence Contemporary Gallery | 11

Mario Molins I was born and grew up in direct contact with Nature. I found something special and mystical in it, all of which created in me transcendence, a deep love, respect and feeling of protection towards her.

These deep emotions for nature have made "sprout" sculptures that have the tree and wood as protagonists.

The tree for me is something sacred, a mystical link with Nature; an element of projection of the landscape.

I seek to create natural poetics through wood, they report the years of more rain or drought or the territory where the tree lived.

I find its essence inside, in its hidden part, I let it speak to discover a whole world; to show nature.

The intervened trees come back to sprout in the form of sculptures and their splinters, in the manner of fractals, I make emerge on paper the trees that were.

My artistic investigations lead me to experiment with the matter of Nature in all its states, through one of my investigations I have created a series of Monotypes by engraving cork oak bark plates intervened and soaked with Chinese ink made from the remains of the sculptures and their seeds, representing the internal forces of the arboreal matter.

On the other hand in several olive groves of the province of Huesca (Spain) I work on direct carving of sculptures with semi-living trees in situ, resulting in immovable sculptures, the “Catharsis�. Over time these sculptures have sprung back from the base and will be nature, tree and sculpture, that is to say, works of art that will produce olives from which virgin olive oil will be obtained, the liquid soul of the sculpture.

Instagram: @mariomolinsescultor mail: mariomolins.escultor@gmail.com

12 | Florence Contemporary Gallery

Light on Darkness Direct Carving of almond tree and Chinese ink painted 125 x 75 x 55 cm 2020

Florence Contemporary Gallery | 13

Alessio Lucarini Born in 1990 in Pistoia, Tuscany. After Bachelor of Arts ( DAMS - Disciplines of arts, music and entertainment ) in Bologna in 2014, he approaches the world of photography and begins to photograph as a freelance photographer.

In 2017 he exhibited the Unusual Landscape photographic project at the “Tuscania Festival” (ITA) and at the “Reclaim Photography Festival” in Birmingham (United Kingdom).

In 2017 he participated in the European Creativewear Project (Heritage & Marketing) colla-borating with the Textile Museum of Prato, for the photographic documentation of the archi-ves of the textile companies of Prato.

Finalist of the Landscape Awards 2018 competition, organized by The Independent Photo-grapher and present in the ‘Talent of the year’ 2017-18 catalog.

In 2018 he self-published Unusual Landscape and in 2019 he self-published Backhead.

In 2019-2020 he worked for companies, agencies and studios for commissioned commercial photographic works.

Currently he works on a personal photographic research for a new artistic photographic vi-sion, expressed through his new photographic works.

Statement The need and the will to express oneself found in Alessio Lucarini its complete realiza-tion through the expression of photographic language. Thanks to the photographic medium he can express and communicate visions, thoughts and realities that make up his artistic research. Photography becomes the means that allows him to have an internal communica-tion system that he can use to express his expression and make it accessible to the observer, establishing a relationship and a visual dialogue with him. The observation of elements and subjects that live in a space related to each other, generating forms and meaning of a reality that manifests itself to us through the observed image, was for him the main interest of his observation and his desire to representation, even before meeting the photographic language. Precisely because of this base of observation of elements and subjects, he found in the land-scape a fertile ground for the expression of his artistic thought, allowing him to develop a path and a thought that until now he has communicated with his photographic language.

His creative thinking is a disparate and non-straight path from the point of view of classification of his artistic work. Classifying it in a photographic genre becomes a difficult task. The classification and conformism to labels is rejected, preferring a singularity of works that move in different photographic-artistic fields.

Experimentation and non-conformity become the stimulus to always land on new thematic and stylistic islands, leading him to have a unique artistic path for each of his work and a con-stant change in his creative thinking, not falling into the static nature of a classification that makes him imprisoned. and put limits on his thought and his artistic expressiveness.

His artistic research and his desire for experimentation led him to approach the use of diffe-rent photographic techniques, from digital to analog to the use of the Polaroid. Freedom of expression, of supports and techniques becomes the basis of a constant search for new stimuli and new visions to always create and establish a new expressive visual communication that would be impossible for him if contained in a static context.

His most recent works investigate more introspective and conceptual themes, highli-ghting colors, abstractions, shapes and elements of our daily life. At the base of his current re-search, experimentation is the constant that determines the stimulus necessary for his artistic expression.

Site: www.lucarinialessio.com Email: info@lucarinialessio.com Instagram: alessio.lucarini

14 | Florence Contemporary Gallery

Colors I Photography / Polaroid 8.9×10.8 cm 2020

Colors II Photography / Polaroid 8.9×10.8 cm 2020

Florence Contemporary Gallery | 15

Kaoru Shibuta Born in Hokkaido of Japan in 1980. Based on research on music and natural sounds, it will be translated into paintings based on synesthesia. He has presented works at the Elisabeth Jones Art Center, the Barcelona Center for Arts and Culture, the Santa Monica Museum of Art, and the Russian National Center for Contemporary Art. 14th Arte Laguna Prize Special Award (Arsenale, Venice). Exhibitions in 2020 include “Little Vioces” (Kensington + Chelsea Art Week London), “Vartual Artists Trail” (Sydenham Arts. London), “After Greed Became Form” (White Rectangle Gallery London), Google Art & Culture Exhibition (Art Aia LA DOLCE Berlin), “International Mural by Mail” (Elisabeth Jones Art Center, Portland), etc.

Statement The world connected by sound and music links us.

Kaoru Shibuta translate musical notes into images and contemporary installations. In addition, through local culture and energy of atmosphere, he create a poetic symphony composed of images, colours and harmony, which is a perfect fusion between nature, music and art.

“If Mozart is the one who composes music to link the terrestrial world to the celestial world, I am the one who undertakes him to propagate it with my painting. If Beethoven composed to surpass philosophy,then I undertake to give them a shape with my paintings. J.S.Bach is the old testament Bible of the classical music.”

Email: shibutakaoru@gmail.com Instagram: shibuta_arts www.singulart.com/en/artist/kaoru-shibuta-5953 www.saatchiart.com/account/artworks/1243430 Phone: +81 90 6332 0122

16 | Florence Contemporary Gallery

Back to the nature ~ Vivace ~ Actively Acrylic, ink, gouache on canvas 600 x 200 cm 2020

Florence Contemporary Gallery | 17

Christian Door Statement Being a digital native, I wanted to investigate some aspects that the digital world commonly offers to the user, such as the modification, customization and combination of pre-established structures, elements, objects within a specific environment or software. In fact at the base of the project there is the desire to create artworks always starting from the same basic elements which in this case are geometric compositions, shifting the attention from time to time to the creative process, albeit limited by the basic compositions becomes a creative practice that generates different artworks but always referable as if it were a series, the the result that follows are works characterized by fields of geometric color that create abstract figures each time where the title represent a personal view to visualize the subject.

Instagram: christian__door Email: christian_door@yahoo.com

System Error Acrylic on canvas 52x30 cm 2020

18 | Florence Contemporary Gallery

Globe Acrylic on canvas 48 x 60 cm 2020

Florence Contemporary Gallery | 19

Un mare di merda Installation 26x30x4,5 cm 2020

20 | Florence Contemporary Gallery

Portrait Acrylic on canvas 100x120 cm 2020

Florence Contemporary Gallery | 21

Andrea Badillo Sariñana Andrea Badillo Sariñana, 1996, Saltillo, Coahuila, México.

Lives and works in Mexico City.

In 2018 she obtained her degree in Fine Arts from the Autonomous University of Coahuila (UAdeC), in 2016 the Summer of Art Grant and the first academic exchange between the ENPEG "La Esmeralda"Mexico City and the UAde Coahuila.

Badillo has exhibited her pictorial work in different museums and galleries within the Mexican Republic, such as the “V Bienal de Arte Sacro Contemporáneo, La Anunciación” in the Centennial Museum of Nuevo León, in Monterrey, México, a show that was later transferred to the Gallery of the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit at Mexico City in June 2018.

Stands out also the “Cien mujeres en la Artes Visuales en México”, a collective that was exhibited in various galleries and cultural centers in Sinaloa, México, which opened in 2018 and continues to this day.

Also the “Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz”; First International Painting Contest, in 2016, in which she obtained an honorable mention. Badillo has two solo exhibitions: Venus Corporeus (Casa de Cultura Claudia Pineda, Saltillo, 2018) and Venus vs. Venus (DLonngi Gallery, CDMX, 2018).

In 2018 she participated in the restoration project of the mural “The four cardinal points”, by the master sculptor Pedro Cervantes (a work in situ of 700 m2 in the Executive Tower of the Ministry of Economy, in CDMX, made in 1976.) The great stone sculpture marble and concrete in high and low relief was restored with the hydro-erasing technique.

In 2019 she was selected to present work at Art Basel Miami.

The piece with her technique sculpture painting, “Touch me with your kisses”; was the cover of Playboy Mexico magazine in the 2020 Art Special.

Statement Since the beginning of my career, the search for an understanding of female sexuality has been a major issue that led me to the research Venus Corporeus: aesthetic analogies of nature, my next solo show.

I start with the end: I discovered the sexual sublimation that occurs mostly or almost exclusively in art. By reading Freud and his explanation of this urge, I understood my desire for water, my fascination with textures, my imagination with the female body. Starting from a conservative and “macho” sociocultural context, my painting raises the question that every adolescent should prioritize: Do I understand my sexuality?

The search for all this led me to the path of alternate pigments to traditional painting, and to 3D within the two-dimensional and, although I use oil, my work contains natural pigments: flower and fruit extracts that help me conceptualize sublimation.

The beauty of the female body, the pure and natural explosion used in my painting, generates questions that I hope will become a plural and open dialogue.

Email: andreabadillos12@gmail.comww Instagram: badillo.sarinana Facebook: badillo.sarinana

22 | Florence Contemporary Gallery

Narigua Oil painting 150 x 120 cm 2020

Florence Contemporary Gallery | 23

Ariel Lavian Ariel Lavian, born 1983, Israel. Graduated from Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, in 2012 (B.F.A, Fashion and Jewelry Department), followed by a Master’s Degree in conceptual design, 2016, at Bezalel.

Since 2017, Lecturer at Bezalel Academy of Art and Design. Lavian has exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions around the world.

His designs have been acquired internationally, both by private collectors as well as selected museums, including the SCAD Museum of Art, Georgia, United States, and the Design Museum, Holon, Israel. Since 2018, Lavian has been appointed Art Jewelry Forum (AJF) Ambassador for Israel. In 2019, Lavian received the Design Award from the Ministry of Culture, Israel. In 2020 Lavian won second place in Venice’s Design Week in the jewelry selection and the galleries award

Site: www.ariellavian.com Instagram: ariellavian

24 | Florence Contemporary Gallery

Depths of Heaven Sculpture: copper, fine silver, enamel, epoxy.

234x209x216 mm 2020

Florence Contemporary Gallery | 25

Francesca Brivio Francesca Brivio is born in Italy in 1989. She learned how to paint at 8 years old, focusing in oil painting on canvas. She graduated at artistic high school and then studied fashion design and menswear pattern-making. After a period in London, as well as a few other experiences in the fashion industry, She began working in a new field that allowed her to travel. Currently, She paints almost every evening. She is drawn to subjects such as portraits, the human body, animals, magical creatures, water and untouched landscapes.

Email: francisbrivio@gmail.com Facebook: francesca.brivio Instagram: francisbrivio

Viaggio Oil on canvas 100x100 cm 2020

26 | Florence Contemporary Gallery

Linfa Oil on canvas 100 x 70 cm 2020

Florence Contemporary Gallery | 27

Sorso Oil on canvas 150 x 100 cm 2020

28 | Florence Contemporary Gallery

Istante Oil on canvas 100 x 50 cm 2019

Florence Contemporary Gallery | 29

Hassiba Kessaci Hassiba KESSACI is an illustrator and etcher based in France. Her artworks, mostly inspired by fashion, are not close to fashion and evolve in other fields like cinema, drama, music… Fashion as an emanation of the human condition : between spirituality and desire, individuality and society, sensitiveness and rationality, the question of gender.

She studied illustration in a French artschool named EDAA and fashion illustration at the London College of Fashion.

Looking at her artworks, you find the importance and the permanency of the line – expressive, delicate and minimalist – and a visual color language – sometimes in tension and saturated -

Site: hassiba-hk.ultrabook.com Behance: hassibakessaci Instagram : hassiba.kessaci Email : hassibakessaci@gmail.com

30 | Florence Contemporary Gallery

à PART or a PART – 1979 Handmade monoprint 29,7 x 42 cm 2019

Florence Contemporary Gallery | 31

Kriston Banfield Kriston Banfield is a multidisciplinary artist, living and working on the twin island of Trinidad and Tobago.

His work is concerned with ideas of community and belonging often referencing the meandering process of defining identity.

By drawing heavily on elements of myth and spirituality he seeks to examine lived experiences and to question how social and economic disparities directly police the human experience, more so one’s availability to opportunity, power and stratification.

His work takes the form of painting, drawing, sculpture and installation. To date he has participated in the “De Mi Barrio a Tu Barrio” street art project (2011) and exhibited in the “2017 Ghetto Biennale” in Port Au Prince, Haiti.

Also, he has participated in a number of self-organized/curated group exhibitions spanning the period 2014 to most recently, the “A Shot to the Ego” exhibition in 2020.

Instagram: kbanfield122 Email: kbanfield122@gmail.com

32 | Florence Contemporary Gallery

Flotsam Acrylic and spray paint on acid free paper 24”x 42” 2020

Florence Contemporary Gallery | 33

Faiá Martins Faiá Martins is native of Curitiba city, Brazil, and started her career in 2016, developing a work in traditional painting inspired by diasporic manifestations in brazilian land, giving special attention to religious syncretism, gypsyism and candomblé, the religion in which she was raised in and iniciated in 2018. Studies Visual Arts at the School of Music and Fine Arts of Paraná and her main expositions was Ubuntu at Memorial de Curitiba (2016), Universitary exhibition at EMBAP (2016 - 2017), LBTs women in the art world at UNESP – Ourinhos (2018), Cubic - Bienal Curitiba International (2019) and Black Awareness Week at UENP – Jacarezinho (2019 - 2020) Statement My research in painting aims to create a dialogue with sacred art and contemporary brazilian art, following the steps of Carybé, Mestre Didi, Djanira Motta and Abdias do Nascimento. Born and raised in a miscegenated household at the Curitiba’s outskirts, my relationship with the graffiti and the sacred icons of the church and the candomblé took place from a very early age and today, in the quest to understand my place in the world, I try to transfer the feeling religious ecstasy and intimacy with the street into a space that was previously denied to us, in order to help fill a pictorial gap within the tradition of brazilian sacred painting, proposing solutions and provocations, focusing on issues such as racism, white-washing and the religious syncretism problematic.

Project description Violence is expressed in many ways, especially in subtle ways. For centuries, art was the means used to establish and validate power narratives and the sacred pictorial construction was a crucial point for the brazilian idea of what Orisha is. In 1826 it was the first time the word candomblé was written in a document.

From Africa to America, the cult of the Orixás suffered several adaptations and its devotees also had to adapt to the new times. Black people who were formerly compulsorily baptized as soon they arrived in brazilian territory and converted to Christianity began to attend Sunday masses without fail to play for their ancestors whenever possible at the cost of police persecution and arbitrary arrests. Today, even with all the freedom of worship won, there are still those who use the syncretism that was used to protect the cult: St. Barbara is Oyá, Ògún is St. George, Osoosí is St. Sebastián, etc.

As an artist and Ìyáwò (title given to the ones who got iniciated) I set out to work on the various facets and problems of this syncretism that has been the subject of countless discussions within the African-based religions in Brazilian territory.

Ogún, orisá lord of metals, metallurgy, war and technology. In Brazil, constantly syncretized with St. George. From the arrival of the yoruba in brazilian lands to the present year, changes have taken place, especially with regard to how the life of initiates in the cult of orishas works.

The ancestral and “archaic” bias of the orisás interests me and enchants me, after all, this is the mystic that we seek when faced with candomblé. But if we, initiated children, evolved with the world, how would our ancestor who lives in our orí (head) not be aware of those changes? How could the orisha of technologies not have followed the technological advances in the world, having been responsible for the great technologies that took humanity forward? Influenced by the literary works “Tent of Miracles” by Jorge Amado, “American Gods” by Neil Gaiman and by digital illustrations by visual artist Luang Senegambia, I started this project that locates this “new Ògún” in the 21st century. Mixing outdated technologies with new technologies, I decided to follow the path of traditional painting in an unconventional support so that the dialogue is consistent either through the discourse with an anthropological tone or by the materiality of the work, as I believed it would be a good tone to paint the master of metals in a metal plate, taking the opportunity to explore the behavior of paints on this surface, also mixing characteristics of Catholic iconography (like the dragon of St. George) and the salute to that deity in binary code.

Instagram: faiamts Tumblr: amarelovirtual.tumblr.com

Borí Oil, goache and acrylic on canvas 47x47cm 2020

34 | Florence Contemporary Gallery

Ògún séc XXI Oil and acrylics on aluminum plate 60x90 cm 2019

Florence Contemporary Gallery | 35

Osun Oil, goache and acrylic on canvas 70x100cm 2017

36 | Florence Contemporary Gallery

Oyรก Oil, goache and acrylic on canvas 70x100cm 2017

Florence Contemporary Gallery | 37

Ulyana Korol Ulyana Korol is an experienced painter based in Spain, whose works have been featured in solo and group exhibitions internationally. She works in the technique of palette knife oil painting.

Ulyana draws her artistic inspiration from travelling. Her canvases emit a warm light and highlight the beauty of nature. The main idea of her art is to transfer the emotion of happiness and also love to our nature.

Ulyana’s love to the flowers comes from her childhood…Flowers were her best toys.

Ulyana’s mother often used to bring her different flowers from their garden, so she had fun by playing with them and by admiring of their beauty. Having taken colored pencils at a very young age, the first thing she has drawn was a flower.

Artist’s passion for photography also has had an impact on her art. Ulyana captures flowers in macro format. She has transferred this technique to her paintings. The image of a large, very close-up flower on the whole canvas has become her speciality.

Particularly fascinating are looking her large peonies.

The purity of color is very important for Ulyana. For more juiciness she uses the technique of palette knife oil painting. It makes her delighted to be able to combine textured brush strokes with the image of a graceful bending of the flower petal.

Ulyana believes that the nature is the most skilled artist. That’s why she never feels the lack of inspiration, aiming in her works to show its bright, unique and fragile beauty noticed by her.

Site: ulyanakorol.com Instagram: ulyana.korol.art Facebook: ulyana.korol.art Email: uljana.korol@gmail.com

38 | Florence Contemporary Gallery

Diva Oil on canvas 80x80 cm 2020

Florence Contemporary Gallery | 39

Craig Jaster Craig Jaster is an American singer, songwriter, jazz pianist, performing, recording, and visual artist based in Florence, Italy. Statement As a musician I thrive on collaboration. As a visual artist I enjoy drawing from the same well of self-expression and improvisation, of open possibility and play. I use collage to widen my palette and share executive control with something outside myself, taking inspiration from weather-worn and torn scraps of posters scavenged from billboards around the city. I appreciate the luxury painting has over live music performance, that I can work on a piece as long as it takes to get it right, but I find it just as important to banish hesitation, over-thinking, and fear in the studio as on the bandstand. In both art and music I take the greatest pleasure from the least expected results, ones I take least credit for. The longer I practice the two arts, the more they mirror each other and even, I would say, how I want to practice life itself. My work is to keep the careening train on the tracks until it arrives at its unknown destination, a place of almost balance, when the many elements, though still competing for space, for air, and the eye of the viewer, agree to settle into amicable restlessness. Site: www.craigjaster.com Email: craigrjaster@gmail.com Instagram: craigjaster

40 | Florence Contemporary Gallery

NU collage, acrylic and gouache on paper 70x50 cm 2020

Florence Contemporary Gallery | 41

Caroline Wade Caroline Wade is 44 years old and started painting in july 2019. Her mother was a painter also, so she also painted when she was a young girl. Since 2019, she has painted mainly portraits, landscapes and abstract.

She loves to catch the emotion of one’s face.

She also likes to imagine abstract art which makes her mind travels in other worlds.

Her purpose of art is to bring joy to people but also to make people think about themselves and the world around them.

As François Cheng, writter, poet and chinese calligraph said « beauty is not a simple ornament, it is a sign by which the creation signifies that life has a meaning ».

Instagram : wade.caroline2019 Email: carowade@bbox.fr

Loneliness Acrilic and pastel 40x29,5 cm 2020

42 | Florence Contemporary Gallery

Abstract Line Acrilic with knife 26x35 cm 2020

Florence Contemporary Gallery | 43

Explosion in pink Acrilic and pastel 40x29 cm 2020

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Green Harmony Acrylic, watercolor and pastel 40x29,5 cm 2020

Florence Contemporary Gallery | 45

Mediha Sevinc I was born in Bulgaria at 1982. I live in Turkey since 1989. I graduated from Mimar Sinan Fina Art University Painting Department at 2008. On my master thesis, I studied the gravure in Turkey.

Now I`m doctoral student at Anatolia University Printmaking Department and also prelector at university in Istanbul. I teach Basic Art Education, Basic Design and Printmaking at Art And Desing Faculty.

During my lisance education, I met with printmaking. It`s relation deepened while postgraduate education. This deepness draged my to study printmaking doctorate. I have participated in many printmaking group exhibitions.

Nowadays my printmakings go into experimental period. I generally use some piece of her printmaking papers to make collages. Universe, cosmos, the world, sistem, the earth, planets etc. are her elements. Especially, the motif of trees that I have is as a pattern on printmakings.

I see the trees as extension of the World. Their roots link to the earth, in case their branches point out our relation with sky.

Today and future are together with on my last art works. Consequently they are just thinking of being while they are formed by.

This serie is about universe; some thoughts about universe. While I create the collage , think about what is unchanging and what the mark of it in our life, in the universe. Espacially philozophy of zen is base of my thoughts; impressed by the philosophy of zen. I think about duality when I create them.

As if, they are somewhere between eternity and at this time, but nowhere behind duality.

I`ve still been continued working on this serie.

Site: www.medihasevinc.com Instagram: mediha.sevinc Email: medihasevinc@gmail.com , mdha.sc@gmail.com

46 | Florence Contemporary Gallery

Thinking of the Moon - III Printmaking Collage 31x39,5 cm 2019

Florence Contemporary Gallery | 47

Ricardo Candia Ricardo Candia (born in 1991, in Chile) He studied at the Argentine School of Photography, Buenos Aires, Argentina and he finished the Latin American Master of Contemporary Photography at the Image Center, Lima, Peru.

He is a photographer with a great interest in documentary photography and new media, based in Antwerp, Belgium.

During his photographic training he focused on a traditional development of images. Then, the questions about the image and the constant concern to search for new forms, made him to investigate new articulations of photography seeking to generate a new dialogue with different artistic practices. From these interrogations he discovered new problems on which to focus, such as the symbolic value of native peoples, migratory processes and extractivist practices of natural resources.

Project description Silence at the end of the world is a critical reflection on the circulation and use of images referring to the Selknam or Ona people, a questioning of the imperishable abuse to which they were subjected since the end of the 19th century, where they were persecuted and enslaved to ratify sovereignty in the Patagonia from Argentina and Chile, until today when they are reduced to souvenirs or consumer objects.

For this I resort to the appropriation of images from the Martin Gusinde archive referring to the Hain ceremony, intervening with photographs of meat within his body paintings, alluding to excessive consumption and the skin torn by foreign conquest.

The sculptures of skulls intervened with faces by means of photochemical techniques, relate to this town with its most human characteristic that is usually not considered due to the absence of a physiognomic representation within its ceremony.

Email: ricardo.candia91@gmail.com Site: ricardocandia.weebly.com/ Instagram: ricardo.candia91

48 | Florence Contemporary Gallery

Skull 023, Silence at the end of the world Digital photography over photo print in sculpture 40x60 cm 2019

Florence Contemporary Gallery | 49

Romina Schimpf Romina Schimpf,Visual Artist Misiones (Argentina) 1977 The abstract three-dimensional textiles are strongly influenced by their birthplace, Misiones Argentina, where the main characteristic of the soil and rocks is their unmistakable red color due to the presence of iron-rich laterite minerals.

Not only the presence of this mineral and its precious color influence and determine the works, but also the exuberant flora and fauna of the place, giving rise to a rich symbiosis of organic and inorganic elements that converge simultaneously to establish a homogeneous flow and relationship between the different stages and processes of life in general.

Textiles express that fusion between living and non-living organisms, that very repetition of nature in every detail, in every being and object. Everything has a beginning and a course in time, aging, which in each work is intrinsically determined by rust.

Statement Abstract three-dimensional textiles are strongly influenced by her birthplace, Misiones Argentina, where the main characteristic of the soil and rocks is their unmistakable red color due to the presence of iron-rich laterite minerals. Not only the presence of this mineral and its precious color influence and determine the works, but also the exuberant flora and fauna of the place, giving rise to a rich symbiosis of organic and inorganic elements that converge simultaneously to establish a homogeneous flow and relationship between the different stages and processes of life in general.

Textiles express that fusion between living and non-living organisms, that same repetition of nature in every detail, in every being and object. Everything has a beginning and a course in time, aging, which in each work is intrinsically determined by rust. The materials that make up the works are diverse and are chosen not only according to the piece, but also with the objective to unify in the material sense, the spiritual aspect of the work; That is why metals, plants, papers, fabrics, paper fabrics, paints, from acrylics to those containing metallic particles, embroidery threads by hand and machine are intertwined with strong and at the same time delicate materials such as felts, wool, high-density polyethylene fibers spun with flash and lutradur.

Email: rominaschimpf@yahoo.com Site: www.rominaschimpf.com Facebook: RSchimpfartist Instagram: romina_schimpf_art

50 | Florence Contemporary Gallery

Oer Emboidery 100 × 70 cm 2020

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Lena Zak Prague-based, Slovak artist Lena Zak mobilizes Abstract Expressionist inspired strategies to create bold, gestural compositions that she refers to as “representations of emotion”. Spontaneity and raw feeling are key to her process, which is about navigating chaos and uncertainty in an effort to find balance. Lena predominantly works in acrylic, but often combines other mediums in a single piece. Moreover, her signature practice consists of the use of non-traditional items instead of typical art brushes.

Zak’s artwork was so far exhibited in capital cities of Europe like Lisbon, Portugal, or Athens, Greece. However, during the pandemic, she also participated in several virtual exhibitions such as Visionary Projects & Lohme Art Gallery (Malmö, Sweden) Exhibit “Disrupting the Stillness”. Zak became an Exhibited Artist of British online gallerist IdeelArt with her paintings listed on well-known art marketplaces like Artsy, 1stdibs, Widewalls, The Artling, and more.

Her new line of work “Material.unlimited” is an exploration of how non-traditional materials (such as mirrors, plywood, cardboard, books, etc.) could be used instead of the traditional painting surfaces (canvas, paper).

Site: www.lenazak.com Instagram: lenazak.art Email: lenazakart@gmail.com

Broken, 1, MATERIAL.unlimited series Acrylic and gesso on a mirror 52,5 x 47 cm 2020

52 | Florence Contemporary Gallery

Broken, 3, MATERIAL.unlimited series Acrylic and gesso on a mirror 50 x 42,5 cm 2020

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Circle, 2 MATERIAL.unlimited series Acrylic, gesso and soft pastel on birch plywood Diameter: 35,5 cm 2020

54 | Florence Contemporary Gallery

Dark Clouds Upon Us, Early Autumn series Acrylic, gesso and soft pastel on stretched canvas 60 x 80 x 4 cm 2020

Florence Contemporary Gallery | 55

Simone Ferguson Simone Ferguson (b. 1999, Fort Worth, TX) is an interdisciplinary artist utilizing fibers, and performance in her practice. She has previously studied at Urban Glass (Brooklyn, NY), Fiber Craft Studio (Chestnut Ridge, NY) and the Pilchuck Glass School (Stanwood, WA). Ferguson’s work is held in private collections across the country. Currently, Ferguson is a BFA candidate at Alfred University in Alfred, NY. Her work explores the complex dynamics of the nuclear family by combining personal experience with material poetics.

The entangled emotions of these relationships are seen through both the fragility, care, and time spent with her materials and the turbulent ways in which they are curated.

This aesthetic balance specifically illustrates the complicated experience of being related to someone who struggles with addiction and mental illness. Material and aesthetic tensions mirror the feelings of guilt and helplessness associated with watching a family member suffer.

Email: simone.n.ferguson@gmail.com Site: simoneferguson.com Instagram: @simone_fergy

56 | Florence Contemporary Gallery

My sister’s sneakers, Empty pill capsules, Missing shoe laces Dimensions Variable 2020

Florence Contemporary Gallery | 57

Charlie Haydn Taylor Charlie Haydn Taylor (b. 1996) is a British pop artist whose work looks to convey ideas of social unrest within our modern day world. Although he touches on a wide array of subjects, ranging from consumer culture to climate change, much of his work looks to comment on the nature of mental health and its effects on a wide range of people regardless of race, gender or class.

His piece shown here, ‘The Divided Mind’, is a depiction of what appears to be a man in the spotlight who struggles with mental health behind the scenes, using drugs and alcohol to alleviate his own depression.

The title is an homage to Sigmund Freud’s theory that when we split our personality to behave different in public as opposed to in our own company, we will feel adverse effects. Art historical references have been included to symbolically link back to the theme. We see the walls adorned by Francis Bacon paintings, an artist whose work looked to delve into the nature of the human condition.

Site: www.charliehaydntaylor.com Email: charles@haydntaylor.com Instagram: charliehtdigital

58 | Florence Contemporary Gallery

The Divided Mind Digital collage 59.4 x 84.1cm 2020

Florence Contemporary Gallery | 59

François-Xavier Laloi François-Xavier Laloi was born in France where he graduated from the National School of Fine Arts of Nîmes in 2017. During his years as a student, his work always followed the footsteps of an instruction near to French art movement Supports/Surfaces.

Even today, works of François-Xavier remain related to it.

After spending some years in Marseille, François-Xavier moved in the south of Italy in 2020, in a quiet place near to the sea in the Provence of Taranto. The opportunity to give a new breath to his work.

Statement Walking the paths of the Mediterranean coast, it didn’t take me too long to detect the presence of huge amount of marine litter... For many of us this problem is a vision of horror. From my artistic point of view, it isn’t at all. Far be it for me to idolize underwater pollution but it represents for me an infinite raw material. How lucky I am to have this gift of the sea and to be able to do a close collaboration with a natural element like the sea.

That’s right, I like to personified Mother « sea » but after awhile spent on the Ionian coast, how I couldn’t have known about Puglia’s folktales : « Se desideri qualcosa le rocce sul fondo del mare te lo portano come un dono, perché quello che tu dai al mare, il mare te lo restituice al centuplo dopo un po di tempo. » Site: www.francoisxavierlaloi.com Email: francoisxavierlaloi@gmail.com Instagram: francoisxavierlaloi

Gift of the sea Fence, inflatable mattress, floats, nets, cords 122 x 54 cm 2020

60 | Florence Contemporary Gallery

Ă€ la pĂŞche aux moules (je ne veux plus y aller Maman) Mussel nets, fence 93 x 102 cm 2020

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Seaside

Cords, floats, nets 71 x 102 cm 2020

62 | Florence Contemporary Gallery

Spiaggia Gandoli Cords, floats, nets, bodyboard 86 x 115 Cm 2020

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Surabhi Chowdhary Surabhi Chowdhary b. 1995 lives and practises in Kolkata, India currently. She has received her Bachelor’s degree from London College of Communication (2018). Chowdhary has been an independent artist since graduating and has showed her works extensively - In: Principle at The Rag Factory, London 2016 ; Slade Foundation Show, London 2018; The India Story 4.0, Kolkata 2018; How White is White, Kolkata, 2019; Labeless at TIFA, Pune 2019; Surface:03 at ArtBuzz, Delhi 2019; The India Story 5.0, Kolkata 2019; Spatial at Method Art Space, Bombay 2020; Trespassing: Pause (online show), Method Art Space, 2020. She also has been a resident participant in the Method Rooftop Residency, Bombay (2020). Additionally Chowdhary’s works have been featured on credible platforms like the Stir World and G5A Foundation.

Working with plaster and the age-old method of printmaking predominates her practice. While mark making has evolved as new form of expression for Chowdhary - a reflection of her cultural and social milieu; a cathartic process in development. Concurrently installation is an ongoing practise in evolution. Chowdhary is deeply intrigued by the constant interaction among humans and the environment as well as the co-existing society. The prevalence of the Cause and Effect relation within the ecosystem plays an important part in creation.

Site: surabhichowdhary.myportfolio.com Instagram: explorare.sc Email : surabhi_1995@hotmail.com

64 | Florence Contemporary Gallery

On The Couch Image Transfer on Plaster 32 x 25 (inches) 2020

Florence Contemporary Gallery | 65

Steve Jensen From 2015 and 2020 Steve has solo exhibited at “SAM” Gallery, Seattle Art Museum, Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, Foss Waterway Seaport Museum in Tacoma, WA. and Museum of Northwest Art in LaConnor, WA., Vashon Center for the Arts, Northwind Arts Center in Port Townsend, WA and Schack Art Center in Everett, WA. This work was featured

by Channel 9 “Art as Voyage: Steve Jensen’s Nordic Heritage” by Stephen Hegg.

Statement Steve Jensen has been a working artist for over 40 years. His current body of work, The Ice is Melting, Our Ship is Sinking” are boats that are meant to symbolize a voyage or journey, perhaps it is the voyage to the other side, or the journey into the unknown.

Steve comes from a long tradition of Norwegian fisherman and boat builders. He grew up on and around his fathers and grandfather’s fishing boats and in the Ballard shipyard. Steve feels if he had inherited his father or grandfathers fishing boat, it would be easier to make a living as an artist than a fisherman, a sad reflection on the state of our marine environment. We are all in the same boat. Humanity needs to connect globally in order to address the issue of climate change or we will become the “endangered species.”

Email: jensenstudios@aol.com Facebook: Steve Jensen Studios Instagram: stevejensen55

66 | Florence Contemporary Gallery

The Nordic Ice Vessel (The Ice is Melting, Our Ship is Sinking, series) Cast lead crystal, found recycled bottle, resin, and melted ice from Antarctica 9” x 24” 9” 2020

Florence Contemporary Gallery | 67

Marilena Ramadori Marilena Ramadori, aka Zizza, was born in 1965 in Montegiorgio (FM). After completing her scientific studies, she graduated in Architecture at the University of Rome “La Sapienza” and subsequently attended the specialization course in “History of Architectural Design”. In 2003 she obtained a European master in “History of Architecture” at the “Roma Tre” University and completed the studies with an internship at the Superintendence for Architectural Heritage and Landscape of Rome. She collaborated with the publishing house Orienta Edizioni as scientific consultant and commercial curator for the “Constructing” series and for the creation of the volumes “Manual of architectural detail: concrete” and “Forma practical method for architectural design”. In 2011 she published as author the volume entitled “Manual of floors”. In 2014 she approaches painting and at the same time also experiments with sculpture. In 2017 and 2018 she attended the painting courses held by Prof. Fabrizio dell’Arno at the RUFA (Rome University of Fine Art), which were crucial for continuing her artistic career with greater awareness and knowledge. She participated in various national and international exhibitions of painting and sculpture, obtaining various prizes and awards. In 2020 she is among the thirty finalists of the 14th Arte Laguna Prize. Lives and works in Velletri.

Statement In her works, the traits of her education emerge, in fact the center of her research is architecture. Buildings have always accompanied humanity and investigating their expressive language becomes a need that the artist does not want to give up on.

Her attention initially focused on important buildings, which have made the history of architecture, and then moved on to observe the city of Rome. Here the artist finds great inspiration in the architectures of the “buildings” that have made an incisive contribution to the urban plan of Rome, transforming it into a modern city. Architecture continues to inspire her art with a new project aimed at researching Italian concrete architecture built at the turn of the 50s and 70s, highlighting its great expressive power capable of giving an unprecedented and original image to the our country.

Her art is a reflection on the human dynamics expressed through the dialectic of architectural forms, with the hope that everyone will walk with their noses turned up in the air looking at the city.

Email: info@zizza-art.com Site: zizza-art.it Facebook: zizza.art Instagram: marilenaramadori

Casa del Portuale Oil on canvas 70x100 cm 2020

68 | Florence Contemporary Gallery

Palazzo Morisi Oil on canvas 100x70 cm 2020

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Via Magna Grecia Oil on canvas 80x120 cm 2020

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Piazzale Magellano Oil on canvas 80x80 cm 2019

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Víctor Manuel Hernández Castillo Víctor Manuel Hernández Castillo (1963), is a figurative graphic artist from Mexico City, specialized in linocut and etching, and distinguished for revaluing the importance of traditional techniques with the aesthetics of the grotesque and the human condition as the central axis of his work. Visual arts bachelor graduate in 1985 at the National School of Plastic Arts, National Autonomous University of Mexico; 1991 Magister Studies at the Academy of Fines Art of Cracow Poland, and at the National School of Fine Arts in Paris France as an invited artist. He had solo exhibitions in Mexico, Canada and Poland, and participated in a number of printmaking biennials and triennials (Japan, Korea, Canada, Poland, Russia, Germany, Serbia). He won several national and international awards: 2005 Special Prize “Presse-Papier”, in the International Biennial of Contemporary Print, Trois Rivieres, Quebec, Canada). 2006 Winner of the First International Salon of Miniprint, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. 2011 Winner the First International Triennial of Print, Belgrade, Serbia. 2019 Equal Prize in the 20 th.

International Print Biennial Varna, Varna, Bulgaria. 2019 Nomination to Prize in the VIII International Triennial of Graphic Arts, Sofia, Bulgaria. 2020 Grand Prix in the Fourth International Printmaking Biennial, Cakac, Serbia.

Statement The prints is based on the metamorphosis of the ephemeral. This conceptual approach led me to explore new figurative and iconographic forms in a traditional medium, lino printing. Its basic carácter allowed me to develop the obvious spontaneity of printmaking in black and white, with the clear intention to give this discipline an important place in contemporary printmaking.

The interest for the grotesque, as a mode of graphic representation, distorts and disfigures natural forms in which human features can be seen through the animal metamorphosis.

The process of distorting and disfiguring is progressive in some of the works from the movement in the calligraphy of the line print in white and in others, the distortion remains dormant in the deep blacks.

Under the rules of grotesque aesthetic I emphasize too much on ironic and hilarious fantasies, in some cases these might become anecdote, where humans share their beings with animals, creating hybrid forms; thus we talk about anthropomorphous animals, imaginary beasts, animals and fantastic cross breeding which build up various poetic visual metaphors.

The figurative baroque in the dynamic and fragmented compositions of this print, as well as the richness in the greys generated by the lines and the deep blacks, produce and ambiance of instability and chaos, specific to this stigmatized reality.

The poetics of the grotesque, present in the narrative qualities, aims to generate in spectators their own interpretative stories. Finally, my current works are close to the oneiric productions which are far away from the limits of human logic.

E-mail: vmhernan_12@yahoo.com.mx Facebook: Víctor Manuel Hernández Castillo

72 | Florence Contemporary Gallery

Quien vive hiere Linocut printted on cotton paper Hahnemuhle.

66 x 119 cm 2020

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Luciano Caggianello Luciano Caggianello, born in Siena in 1959, is an artist and designer who began his career in the 80s interacting with different professional fields (advertising, illustration, graphics, design). At the same time he embarked on a solid path of artistic research that, after the initial and assiduous attendance at the studios and studios of Turin artists (Lella Burzio, Giacomo Soffiantino, Romano Campagnoli), led him to evolve different visual themes and also allow him to consolidate a structured itinerary national and international exhibition. At the same time, along this path, it is also accompanied by the publication of some books (“Intermediario Immateriale” 2003, “Parole altrove” 2014, “Aporia e Metamorfosi dell’Arte” 2019, “Fenomenologia del Quotidiano 2020) which serve as an aid to reflection. and deepening about one’s conceptual and philosophical research.

In recent years his artistic recognition has become substantially a work of prevailing perceptual synthesis that re-elaborates all the didactic, cultural and intellectual interactions coming also from the synthesis of its multiple training fields (from applied industrial physics, to architecture, to graphics, to design, to visual). This approach identifies the artistic objective of a basic conceptual thematic project and of experimentation inserted between concrete “poverty” and digital work, revealing much more relevant to parameters and concepts of presentation than of representation.

He lives and works in Turin.

Statement Facing existence means exposing oneself to that calvary that inflicts daily pain and can be removed through a sort of liturgy of forgetting that interacts with the consequence of a path of mental and communicative structures that are put into action through cornerstones and some thaumaturgical moments.

Perhaps, these holds translate into an inverted succession, through the combination of a prolific frame worthy of notes, annotations, references, overflowing promises and a deep investigation into the need for authenticity.

It is almost a transparent methodology of a humanism of the possible, punched, anarchic, authentic, from whose testimony the poetics of all transparency disappear and the elusive essence of life unravels, that life that without love but above all without possibility, weighs as much as a condensed of useless matter on the scales of the universe.

Site: gigarte.com/lucianocaggianello ucianocaggianello.tumblr.com/archive Instagram: lucianocaggianello Facebook: luciano.caggianello.1 Twitter: lcaggianello Behance: lucianocaggianello

74 | Florence Contemporary Gallery

Humanism of the possible Installation 28x28x4 cm 2020

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Francesco De Lorenzo Born in Naples on 27 April 1978 ,I lived up to the age of eighteen in Limpidi, a small village in Calabria, in the province of Vibo Valentia. Transferred to Tuscany for education reasons, I earned a degree in Telecommunications Engineering from the University of Siena and a Master in Web and Multimedia from the University of Florence.

While traveling a path far from that of art, I have never abandoned the passion for drawing and painting that has accompanied me since I was a child. Passion inherited from my mother, who let me grow up among canvases and oil colors and breathe the love for art. The studies I followed allowed me to discover and become passionate about graphics and digital illustrations. I love travelling and, during the most recent trips to European capitals, I got the inspiration for my latest works.

I was fascinated by the presence of large installations representing the name of the city.

So I started to create writings, single words that summarize the theme of the work, which I make in cardboard and decorate by painting elements taken from cartoons, comics or videogames. I use to express real concepts, social problems sometimes even very hard ones such as drug addiction, prostitution, migration. I can’t define what I do with a word, also because I find that definitions trap an artist in a stereotype; I consider myself a visionary, who loves surrealism, pop art and tries to convey their ideas and feelings by winking at these artistic currents.

Email: delorenzofra@gmail.com Site: delorenzofrancesco.com Facebook: delorenzofra Instagram: delorenzofra

Firenze Cardboard, decoupage, acrylic 128x41x11 cm 2020

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Milano Cardboard, decoupage, acrylic 137x41,5x10,5 cm 2020

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Liverpool Cardboard, decoupage, acrylic 127x47x15 cm 2019

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Napoli Cardboard, decoupage, acrylic 127x47x15 cm 2019

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Isobel Church Isobel Church is a multi-disciplinary artist whose works are artefacts for the present day, exploring our ever-changing and fragile relationship with natural phenomena. Poised between poetic expression and objective observation, her work uses unexpected materiality to give form to the threshold between the visible and the invisible, the fleeting and the enduring.

Church lives and works in London, having gained Masters from both the Royal College of Art (Distinction) and the School of Oriental and African Studies. She has exhibited internationally, including solo exhibitions in Rome and Brussels, and is a member of the Royal Society of Sculptors. Collections include Galila’s P.O.C in Brussels, The Otazu Foundation, Spain, De Nederlandsche Bank and the Luciano Benetton collection.

Project description A tall standing steel structure encompasses twelve large watermarked paper panels, taking the form of an archway or door. The watermarked lines delineate the waterways of Nunavut, a Canadian arctic archipelago, tracing river paths around the islands as they branch and bifurcate.

The title is in part a reference to the watermarking tradition as a means of concealing imagery and text that is revealed by light, whilst also alluding to the seasonal transformation of the rivers as they freeze over; a phenomenon which is diminishing, with an attenuated layer of ice. Defining the space around it, the doorway acts as a marker of transition as well as an opportunity to pursue a different path.

Site www.isobelchurch.com Email: isobelchurch@gmail.com Instagram: isobel_church

80 | Florence Contemporary Gallery

The Vanishing Act Watermarked paper, steel, acrylic, paint, LEDs 258x142x140cm 2020

Florence Contemporary Gallery | 81

Juno Jou Juno Jou is a Korean artist who defines herself as a layer builder and a photographer based in Seoul and London.

After graduating from university in Korea, she went to London to study more about photography. Juno mostly captures her reality as facing the world as a female. As a woman, Jou, the layer builder, does mainly tell and shoot stories about women, including the location of women in her society, women’s rights, and pies for females. She is also paying attention to the cultural differences that she experienced while studying abroad in London which is still going on, and therefore, continues to focus on women in different cultures in the world.

Project description Among the many ways of censorship, I decided to talk about 'self-censorship,' the shape of censorship directed at myself. "The self-examination seemed to be getting the end, but it's starting to go back again to the very first place.

"I said, "Is there an end to censorship? The starting point of the beginning is blurry, but can the end be clear?" But these ideas can never be discouraged and frustrated, and cannot give up the end of censorship.

"I refuse to be obscured by the notion of censorship in the belief that a moment like an end of self-censorship is going to last a day, an hour, a minute, and that there will certainly be a time when that moment will come true.�

I wondered how to visualize the censorship. Then, through a conversation with a female interviewer: "There seems to be an end, but it begins again," I felt like censorship was a layer. Censorship can exist in different shapes within its own world, or in similar and identical shapes. In my world, censorship may be made up of soft shells like eggs, never open in a trunk of a car for someone else or a form of squeezing the whole body with transparent plastic bags for someone else.

It occurred to me that all this was surrounding us in layers. So I'm going to create a very normal and dull day into the picture, and put a woman in it, and let the layers of censorship surrounding and surrounding women emerge.

It is intended to show a series of scenes in which people are eaten by the layers, and they are eaten again and again and it presents that women do not deny themselves that there is a layer of censorship on them, but they will never let it dominate them.

Although the scenes show the situation continuously, I hope that the struggle of her and her layers will never get to an end. Therefore, I wish that everyone who looks at the work with a deep perspective on whether she can get rid of and destroy the layers will have hope together.

Instagram: junojou Email: junoseunghui@gmail.com

82 | Florence Contemporary Gallery

The Layers Photography 76.2 x 50.8 cm 2020

Florence Contemporary Gallery | 83

Lacuna Lacuna is a street artist who remains anonymous. His artistic focus is directed at injustice, exploitation, exclusion and other socially critical issues. He depicts these issues primarily with figurative stencils, poetry, slogans, and, street interventions.

He became politically active in the anarchist and anti-fascist movement in the beginning of the 90’s. During this time, he read a how-to-do article about graffiti writing in a political magazine. Lacuna had already been painting political slogans on walls, but this article planted the roots for his further activities. After several trail draft pieces on paper, he sprayed his first graffiti with his first pen name 08/15 on a wall at the end of 1994.

After painting anonymously in public spaces for 25 years, Lacuna made the step from the streets into galleries. While working in the streets, one can reach a large amount of people from all parts of society at the same time. In a gallery, the audience is much smaller. Since 2019, he uses Instagram and Facebook to promote his work. Before then, he was strictly offline. Encouraged by the direct support of social media, he continues to show his work at galleries and festivals. At the same time, he remains true to himself and still sprays without permission in public spaces.

Statement My images are my flashlight.

We are currently overwhelmed a million times with images, that mainly have trivial meanings, like: buy me! or vote for me! I create a visual antipole. Human history is a conglomerate of reappearance of events. There were many approaches to erupt out of this periodicity.

I have worked in the streets for many years and painted my stencils both signed and unsigned. It is important for me to create art for the art’s sake. Far away from the pressure to earn money or to appeal to an audience. I concentrate on the raw establishment of images that remain true to my beliefs because they grow out of my soul. Within them I can broach my thoughts, feelings and fears. They are my therapy to handle the bizarre reality of how human beings live together.

I often wander through the darkness of existence. With my art, I can hold a candle to find the way that appears right to me.

That’s why I depict people, that interact with each other or paint figures, that do represent a certain way of thinking. These paths are fundamental to my work and I enlarge them with my own viewpoints. I establish small niches in public and private spaces. Niches to pause for a moment. Simply lacunas.

Site: lacuna.blogsport.eu Instagram: lacuna.streetart Facebook: lacuna.streetart Email: lacuna_revolt@web.de

84 | Florence Contemporary Gallery

The lovers after Rene Magritte Spraypaint and six layer stencil on canvas.

40 x 50 cm 2020

Florence Contemporary Gallery | 85

Joyce Camilleri Born in Canada in 1980, Joyce Camilleri lived most of her childhood and adult life in her parents’ country of origin, Malta. After completing her first degree in art teaching in Malta in 2002, Camilleri felt the need to further her studies in the field of fine art, thus completing an artistic printmaking diploma at the Malta School of Art and seeking further simultaneous training at the International Summer Academy of Fine Arts in Salzburg. In 2017, Camilleri completed the M.Ed Artist Teacher degree at the University of West of Scotland.

Currently Camilleri is filling a full-time artist teacher post at the Malta School of Art, whilst developing a personal visual language that attempts to explore drawing and printmaking as distinct, nonetheless symbiotic art practices.

Her studio practice allows Camilleri to push the boundaries of essentially graphical elements through the use of mixed media, bringing about both figurative and quasi-abstract visual metaphors that meander along the fine line that divides yet unites the real and the surreal. Alongside, such artistic research enables her to explore the poetic space of contemporary drawing, whilst constantly nourishing and revisiting an artistic process that is allowed to prevail over subject-matter.

Artistic intent and process-led practices retain interchangeable roles throughout Camilleri’s approach to art theory and practice.

Site: joycamilleri.wordpress.com Facebook: joyce.camilleri.3 Instagram: joyce.camilleri.art Email: joycamilleri80@gmail.com

Nebula I Mixed Media 19 x 12 on 30 x 20 cm handmade paper 2020

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Nebula II Mixed Media 19 x 12 on 30 x 20 cm handmade paper 2020

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Nebula III Mixed Media 19 x 12 on 30 x 20 cm handmade paper 2020

88 | Florence Contemporary Gallery

Nebula IV Mixed Media 19 x 12 on 30 x 20 cm handmade paper 2020

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Manuel Delgado A Brussels-based Spanish artist, Manuel Delgado is a visual poet. He aims to develop expansive and innovative modes of writing about, with and as art, taking advantage of his theoretical basis in Law, Political Science and Philosophy.

Statement His works set philosophical essays in modern aesthetics by fostering joint practices that combine poetry with illustration or photography or music, and focusing on delivering a future memory of today’s images.

In that regard, Manuel promotes collaborative projects for depicting an utterly panorama of existential processes, which are in the end based on many individuals’ perspectives Project description This artwork, “The Fall of the Rebel Angels”, belongs to an ongoing project titled “Painthical”, which consists on a series of inclusive poems in English or Spanish and braille conceived to represent the content of famous classical paintings in a non-dogmatic interactive way.

Panthical does not aim to build the objective, if any, substance of the work, but rather to present it poetically as an intermediate suggesting step before even looking at the real painting, and so dismantling any preconditions when observing the original masterpiece; how to understand a certain author, how to give context to a certain piece etc.

Additionally, Painthical seeks to capture the pictorial quality of classical paintings and transmit it through the poems to both sighted and blind (or partially sighted) people. That is why it is fundamentally a collaborative inclusive art project.

Site:manuel-delgado-art.com Email: manueldelgadomerono@gmail.com Instagram: manuel.delgado.art

90 | Florence Contemporary Gallery

The Fall of the Rebel Angels English and Braille poems on matte coated paper 70x50 cm 2020

Florence Contemporary Gallery | 91

Maxime Jean Lefebvre I was born and raised in France. I moved to America to pursue my MFA in Printmaking at RISD. I am inspired by history and systems of power, and by my experience as a foreigner in America. Through my current body of ceramic work, I am exploring relationships between commerce, systemization and the everyday familiar Statement My current series of vessels visually depicts my observations in American supermarkets, which have always felt like museums to me. In this work I create objects of an imagined future “past.�

Clay is primal and ageless and constitutes much of what we know of past civilizations, making ceramics the natural medium of choice for this project. The plastic containers that inspire these forms will, in turn, be how our history will be deciphered by future generations.

I have been applying different patterns and textures to the vessels, as a way to highlight the shape and erase the brand, so that they would remain familiar but become slightly uncanny.

I picture a historian, in a very distant future, looking at both roman amphoras and detergent bottles, trying to connect the functions of the two, bridging the immense gap between elegant terra cotta bearing prized olive oil and plastic filled with toxic chemicals. The result is a new kind of vessel, reminiscent of the shape of an amphora, but ever so gaudy and mismatched.

Site: maximejeanlefebvre.com Instagram: @maximejeanlefebvre

92 | Florence Contemporary Gallery

Amphora 7 (Big Camo Milk) Slipcast stoneware and glaze 9x6x7 inches 2020

Florence Contemporary Gallery | 93

Vassilis Vassiliades Vassilis Vassiliades was born in Nicosia/ Cyprus in 1972. He studied painting at the Pietro Vannucci Academy of Fine Arts in Perugia, Italy, where he graduated in 1996. He lives in Nicosia and has been working as an art teacher since 2002.

He has solo exhibitions and participations in many group exhibitions in Cyprus and abroad. He has lectured at several conferences in universities, cultural associations and art events on issues related to culture. Since 2016 he is the Curator of the Larnaca Biennale, the only Art Biennale organized in Cyprus. He has collaborated with newspapers and art magazines and hundreds of his articles have been published on various websites.

Statement The Imprints series contains in equal quantities, all the components of my artistic perception. That is why there is this strong sense of balance. It is a strictly, geometrically structured environment. I am not just talking about the colored rectangles but about the geometrical movements too.

The element of time exists through the movement only as a memory. Something that happened once and after that, time froze. The only thing that remains is space, the unique element of our existence. Only space remembers, time forgets. And then it is the mystery, the experience of the unanswered question that these “static motions” create. Looking at the imprint of time on space, one repeats the same questions without getting an answer. The paradox of a recurring eternity….

I would like to see my work as an opportunity for the viewer to contemplate the importance of timelessness in art. I ‘m excited to propose a timeless art against an ephemeral art that simply captures snapshots of our everyday lives.

I consider myself “slow-burning”, something I think also characterizes every creation of mine. In other words, I develop evolutionarily during every process, subconsciously investing in the aftertaste. It is for this reason, moreover, that I live each of my artistic experiences more as a penetration than as a wandering. And what I lose in time I always gain in the end in a kind of accumulated emotion. Observing a piece of mine someone experiences this same thing. What first looks like a simple, static composition, starts to evolve gradually changing not only as a concept but as an image too.

Site: www.vassiliadesvas.com Email: vassiliades@cytanet.com.cy

Super position RED Paint on marine plywood, wooden cube 100x80 cm 2020

94 | Florence Contemporary Gallery

Quantum femininity Paint on marine plywood, wooden cube, ceramic statue 100x80cm 2020

Florence Contemporary Gallery | 95

Super position YELLOW Paint on marine plywood, wooden cube 100x70 cm 2020

96 | Florence Contemporary Gallery

Quantum tunneling Paint on marine plywood, wooden cube, paper boat 100x70 cm 2020

Florence Contemporary Gallery | 97

Manu Romeiro Manu Romeiro is a brazilian visual artist born in São Paulo. She develops her artistic work through drawing, writing, painting, engraving and musical impulses, and search for bring to the surface (in sound, in matter or in thought) the subtle encounter between the humans: the conflict that vibrates between them and the environment they fill in and have been filled.

She holds a master’s degree in painting at Lisbon University, she is graduated in Fine Arts from the State University of Campinas (Unicamp), Brazil, developed her research in metal engraving for six years in SESC Pompeia’s engraving studio and studied Scenography and Costume Design in the technical course at Theater’s SP School.

Currently living in Portugal, she is a member of Cultural Association We Are Thinking and the Araponga Collective.

She participates in exhibitions and artistic residencies in Brazil, Portugal, Italia, Camboja and South Kourea since 2005 and performs the intervention Portrait Talked in festivals, libraries and other public spaces in several regions of Brazil and Portugal.

Site: manutchuga.wixsite.com/manuromeiro Email: manutchuga@gmail.com Instagram: romeiromanu Facebook: manuela.romeiro

98 | Florence Contemporary Gallery

Rita and Lucas (diptych) Acrylic on fabric 90cm x 115cm (each one) 2020

Florence Contemporary Gallery | 99

Sally de Courcy Sally de Courcy began by casting repeated abstract forms to create more complex arrangements where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. At art school, she was challenged to bring more of herself into the piece. Her work is not autobiographical in the figurative sense but explores the space between conscious representation and unconscious influence.

Whilst a young medic, she was exposed to the suffering of refugees from a genocidal regime. Much of her work revisits these experiences and stands for those treated as less than human. More recently her work concerns humanitarian aspects of the pandemic as a medically retired doctor and immunocompromised artist living in social isolation.

Using varied materials, she casts repeated contextually linked objects that when perceived are re-assembled to reveal a narrative. Her work is frequently decorative but hiding darker and often sinister subjects that when revealed create dissonance.

Sally qualified in 2016 from the UCA, Farnham with masters with distinction in Fine Art. Sally is a member of IAVA and Continuum.

She has exhibited internationally most recently at The Borders Exhibition in Venice and the TY Pawb Open, Wales. She has exhibitions planned in 2021 in London and the UK. Sally lives in Woking, UK. Site: www.sallydecourcy.co.uk Email: sadec@hotmail.co.uk Instagram: decourcysally

Dream or Nightmare?

Cast driftwood, objects, in jesmonite 50x50x50 cm 2020

100 | Florence Contemporary Gallery

Ceiling Rose Cast objects in Easiflow plastic 200cm diameter 2015

Florence Contemporary Gallery | 101

Installation Horsell Common Cast form aluminium resin 50x50x30 cm 2014

102 | Florence Contemporary Gallery

Making Waves Cast vase in jesmonite, pigments 200x75x35 cm 2018

Florence Contemporary Gallery | 103

Enrico Valeruz Born in Cavalese and raised in Canazei, part of Trentino region, I began to get passionate about contemporary art while studying at the Art Institute of “ Pozza di Fassa “. Thanks to the advice of my professor of Art History, I continued my studies on painting at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts in Milan, later continuing at the Università Statale of Milan “Storia e critica d’arte “.

My interests have matured in works and artistic projects that have as a research theme the concept of relationship in its multiple facets and through means ranging from painting to installations. The theme was also explored in the master's thesis Pratiche della partecipazione nell’arte internazionale tra la fine del XX e l’inizio del XXI secolo” (“Practices of participation in international art between the end of the twentieth and the beginning of the twenty-first century”).

I had the opportunity to compare myself with works by different national and international artists since I started working at a museum institution, as well as working in contact with children of primary schools in Milan offered me the opportunity to approach a different reality and to different relational paths.

Project description The works are part of a series made with ribbons, each of them has different chromatic qualities to which the different widths of the same are added.

The title shows that the main theme is "relationship"; the leitmotiv of my research, which can be interpreted here both as an elaboration focused on the theory of colors and as a representation of the human being or, in this case, a coexistence of both issues.

As already mentioned, each ribbon is distinguished by its peculiar chromatic characteristics: saturation, hue and brightness whose arrangement creates a sequence or a coloristic rhythm and reflections. Reconnecting to the theory of colors, the ribbons create plays of contrasts and chromatic agreements that can be grasped in the entirety as well as in the singularity, leading the viewer to grasp new possible assonances and dissonances, also suggesting subjective images or moods.

On the other hand, the work can be interpreted as an emanation of the personality of the human being, a multiple and non-monolithic entity, in which different shades can coexist. Each ribbon corresponds to one side of the character it composes, an integrated part of the entire spectrum and, consequently, of its own uniqueness. Again, with a broader view, the frame becomes a mirror of the entire society in which different individuals live and interact.

Email: enricovaleruz@virgilio.it Site: untitledsart.wordpress.com

104 | Florence Contemporary Gallery

Coexistence (Iridescence) Ribbons on frame 100Ă—70 cm 2020

Florence Contemporary Gallery | 105

Sofianna Lekou Statement There is something in structures ,that reaches specific limits but also exceeds them. Lines and shapes do not limit the image but form it and release it. The designs spread out on paper, on screen and become complete with colors and details. Each part has its own elements in the whole. It acquires its position, its identity and coexists with each other. Once the beginning with the first shape is done, the rest follow, bond together and narrate what I see and feel. I like others to see what I see. I like sharing.

The surrounding makes the beginning and then each shape takes over and continues the narration.

Email: kelousofsof@gmail.com Instagram: sofiann_a

Untitled Digital painting 30x25 cm 2020

106 | Florence Contemporary Gallery

It could be moving, it could not digital painting 30x25 cm 2020

Florence Contemporary Gallery | 107

The Woman Digital painting, charcoal 30x25 cm 2021

108 | Florence Contemporary Gallery

The Portrait digital painting, charcoal 30x25 cm 2021

Florence Contemporary Gallery | 109

Mitoshka Alkova Statement Typewriter art is the process of using a typewriters mechanism and ink to create images; each is typed with permanence on a page that will age with the slow passage of time. Beautiful from afar, this work is truly appreciated up close when the process gives the work new meaning- made using an almost forgotten machine.

Mitoshka Alkova is a Typewriter Artist experimenting with new ways to use an almost forgotten medium and push it into the 3D form. Her work is imbedded in language, through the nature of the typewriter, and laced with meaning when seen up close- each full stop and letter gaining a new meaning.

Project description SpaceTime Cone is a typewritten sculpture piece which plays homage to the globe by presenting the two connected eternities of time and the constellations. The navy cone is covered in the constellations as seen from London in summer, typed accurately with gold ink. The smaller, transparent cone of time takes its shape from a light cone in special and general relativity. All time filtering from future to past. Two connected eternities.

Site: mitoshkaa.com Instagram: mitoshkaa Email: mitoshkaa@gmail.com

110 | Florence Contemporary Gallery

SpaceTime Cone Typewriter Art sculpture 27x25 cm 2020

Florence Contemporary Gallery | 111

Sara Carpentieri Predominantly a fashion photographer, Sara Carpentieri sees herself exploring themes surrounding technology, Human behaviour and gender exploration. Working on both very personal photography projects and client briefs, consistently showing her style of photography throughout with a real focus on colour and subject.

This particular image of Jabez is a balance between soft light, bold colours and a sharp focus and intimacy on the subject.

Her work has been exhibited on a variety of platforms and magazines including the likes of Dazed and Confused, PITCHFORK, I-D, DIY, BBC online and The Face magazine.

Site: saracarpentieri.co.uk Email: saraj987@hotmail.co.uk Instagram: sara_carpentieri_

Jabez Photography, 35mm colour film 11.073 x 16.473 inches 2019

112 | Florence Contemporary Gallery

Adam in morning Photography 11.693x16.537 inches 2020

Florence Contemporary Gallery | 113

Tai Photography 11.693x 16.537 inches 2020

114 | Florence Contemporary Gallery

Adam Photography 11.468x16.476 inches 2020

Florence Contemporary Gallery | 115

Carla Piacenza Carla Piacenza (b.1979, Argentina). Based in Belgium.

I´ve studied film at the National University of Córdoba, Argentina and completed the Latin American Master of Contemporary Photography at the Image Center of Lima, Peru.

I´d been part of the online program “Proyecto Imaginario Latinoamérica 2019-2020”.

I had workshops with artists and curators like: Adriana Lestido (AR), Jorge Villacorta (PE), Claudi Carreras (ES), Antoine D `Agata (FR), Luis Camnitzer (UY-US), Rosângela Rennó (BR), Pablo Ortiz Monasterio (MX), Natalia Iguiñiz (PE), Raimond Chaves (CO), Andrea Josch (CL), Martín Sastre (UY), Fabiana Barreda (AR), Gonzalo Golpe (ES), Fernando Montiel Klint (MX), Mariela Sancari (AR-MX) and more.

My work addresses issues that are related to nature and human behavior. Thus, I reflect on gender through landscapes and urban views, I explore the sense of identity in society, I analyze migration from my perspective as an immigrant, or I propose a discussion on the environment and climate change.

Taking resources from science and psychology, and transforming them into visual poetics, the works are presented as hypothetical and experiential ideas seeking to decode a personal argument.

The films taught me to tell stories in all their dimensions and, from there, I resort to the freedom to experiment by the use of different media and formats for the realization of my projects, be it photography, video, installations or publications.

Project description “Connection in the mimetic moon” is a part of the serie Sympathy attack that explores the first moment of connection (or disconnection) that happens between people when they meet each other. It researches the intersection between the individual and the society, the identity and the originality. The act and contradiction of being one in a whole system. It is an immediate explosion that can go from synchronicity to disagreement, guided by a prejudice that analyzes between layers the details and secrets of the other person. And at the same time that the other stranger person is, like us, watching us.

This set of hypotheses is represented with spacescape images, from the beginning of the beginnings, where the relationships are crossed like eclipses, the habitual plays with the singular and the differences empathize.

Email: carlapiacenza@gmail.com Site: carlapiacenza.weebly.com

116 | Florence Contemporary Gallery

Connection in the mimetic moon Analog photography 60x60 cm 2017

Florence Contemporary Gallery | 117

Nadja Shkirat Nadja Shkirat is a Jerusalem-based professional photographer, visual artist and educator from Germany. She studied art education at the University of Leipzig and continued her artistic education in Photography at the art academy Burg Giebichenstein in Halle (Saale), where she learned to work with different photographic mediums and techniques.

Her art presents a surreal, vivid and vibrant imagery. Mainly focussing on analog photography she is creating bright and colorful photographs mixing the grotesque with the beautiful. To her, photographs are more than just a copy of something, they are an entrance to a world and a story that she creates with her own eyes. Commenting on ideals of beauty, sexuality and consumerism, Nadja Shkirat´s work visualizes questions about ideology, aesthetics and social behaviors.

Statement Illusions. People live in illusions. Society creates illusions. We love illusions. It keeps us at peace. In my eyes Illusion is like a rosy soft cloud that tastes like cotton candy. Too sweet to be true. This analog color photo series is showing one of many illusions by presenting a very ambivalent symbol: the gun. My reality shows weapons as a symbol of violence, war, pain, blood and military and at the same time my illusion tells me it is a symbol of safety, self-reliance and freedom.

We love to glamorize and glorify guns, violence and war. We see it in TV series, in music videos and in action movies.

It is cool and trendy. By creating and visualizing this illusion in a paradox imagery, arms glorification becomes a status symbol, a fashion and an accessory. By Combining the gentle with the rough, the bizarre with the beautiful and the veiled with the unveiled, it becomes the epitome of ILLUSION.

Site: www.nadjashkirat.com Instagram: nadja.shkirat Email: hello@nadjashkirat.com

118 | Florence Contemporary Gallery

Illusion Analog medium format photography 90x120 cm 2020

Florence Contemporary Gallery | 119

Illusion Analog medium format photography 90x120 cm 2020

120 | Florence Contemporary Gallery

Illusion Analog medium format photography 90x120 cm 2020

Florence Contemporary Gallery | 121

Santiago Robles Master in Visual Arts from the College of Arts and Design of UNAM. He studied at the Art Students League in New York and at the Clinics for Specialization in Contemporary Art in Oaxaca, UABJO-La Curtiduría Cultural Center. He has received various awards such as first place in the design contest of the 5th International Contemporary Film Festival of Mexico City, FICCO-Cinemex (2008); the first place in the 1st Ibero-American Illustration Catalog of the SM Foundation and FIL Guadalajara (2010); the Jury Prize in the category of Posters of Cultural Themes of the 11th International Poster Biennial in Mexico (2010); the Unique Prize in the category of Artist Book at the 1st University Biennial of Art and Design of UNAM (2014); as well as an honorable mention in the 1st Biennial of the Volcanoes of the Noval Foundation in the graphics category (2015) and in the XXIII Catalog of Illustrators of Children’s and Youth Publications of Conaculta. He was a fellow of the Young Creators Program (2015-2016) in the graphic category and his collective editorial projects have been beneficiaries of the Edmundo Valadés Program to Support the Editing of Independent Magazines (2007-2008 and 2008-2009), as well as the Program Promotion of Cultural Projects and Co-investments (2013) of the National Fund for Culture and the Arts.

In two occasions he has been judge and tutor of the Program to Stimulate Artistic Creation and Development (PECDA) in the category of Visual Arts. He is co-founder of Malpaís Ediciones and contributed to the magazines La ciudad de Frente and Código . He has published books about his visual art such as Migración (2019), Códice Starbuckstlán (SARA, 2020) and We all cook, we all eat.

Collaborative art projects in the public space of Mexico City (2021). He has presented solo and group exhibitions in countries such as France, Austria, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Brazil, Iran, Colombia, Cuba and the United States of America. Among his most recent exhibitions are: Zapata alive through contemporary graphics (Museo Nacional de la Estampa, 2019); In the shade of the tree (Casa del Virrey de Mendoza, 2019-2020); Santiago Robles (Cerrada del arte, 2019); Camp for young naturalists (Museum of the City of Querétaro, 2019-2020) and Mondo Dernier Cri. Une internationale Sérigrafike (Musée International des Arts Modestes, 2020-2021). His work is represented by Diderot Art and Saisho Art. Site: santiagorobles.info Email: contacto@santiagorobles.info Instagram: santiagorb Facebook: santiago.bonfil

Diseñorita Acrylic paint on wall.

Variable size.

2018

122 | Florence Contemporary Gallery

All that shore was the lake.

Oil painting on canvas 60 x 90 cm 2019

Florence Contemporary Gallery | 123

#RiveradelAtoyac #Instagood #BlueRiver #PlacesToGo #Inspiration, 2020.

Oil painting on canvas 70 x 70 cm 2020

124 | Florence Contemporary Gallery

Ciudad Rota Installation Variable sizes, 18 pieces 2016

Florence Contemporary Gallery | 125

Alaric Hobbs Since 2012 Alaric’s portrayed hand-drawn illustrations in geometric forms that have been influenced by something he finds fascinating in the world; such as tribal symbols, ancient alphabets, symbols of belief and the beauty of the natural world.

Alaric feels art should be aesthetically pleasing and also convey deeper thought.

Statement My artwork is geometric, informative, flamboyant, playful and direct.

I use my knowledge and research of the world by creating visuals that have roots in semiotics. Creating art that is eye-pleasing and thought-provoking is something I find inherent. I toy with the idea of perfection in the technological era by creating pieces with my hands.

This can be a difficult challenge at times as there can be moments where I want to erase all pencil marks, or rid the process of the finished drawing. However, this is a personal challenge and one that reminds myself and the viewer that perfect ideals can still portray machine-like qualities even when done this way.

Email: alarichobbs@gmail.com Site: www.alarichobbs.com Instagram: alarichobbsartist

126 | Florence Contemporary Gallery

Clitoris(Atlantis) Spray Paint And Pen on Paper 70x100cm 2020

Florence Contemporary Gallery | 127

Sofya Danilova

Sofya Danilova has over 15 years of experience in shooting and editing pictures. She is proficient in a wide range of styles — from photo manipulations and art photography to commercial photo shoots.

After a decade of constant work, Sofya got to the point where two-dimensional photography was just not enough to express everything she wanted to. As a seasoned photographer, she experimented with frame dynamics and volume, tried a hand in different styles, but in the end, decided not to limit herself by just two dimensions, bending them to create more space in her art.

And so, to pass across more complex feelings, Sofya started to create kaleidoscopes — images that can achieve the effect of space’s enclosure and deeper immersion in the picture.

Statement I first started making kaleidoscopes after going to the abstract art festival. Among many works, I saw there an installation of neon threads stretched between trees. They were ordinary wool threads of a certain colour that glowed in the ultraviolet. While they lay on the ground, they were not impressive at all; but after they were combined in a preconceived pattern, the strings and the ultraviolet light made space a low-polygonal (low-detail, emphatically minimalist) matrix.

I was looking at their pattern and internally debated with myself: how a photograph could adequately convey a sense of this space, which immerses the viewer in itself?

When I began to edit pictures from the festival, I tried to achieve the same effect of immersion in the picture, of closedness, of wholeness. But an ordinary photo was not enough for that. So I started experimenting with form and realized that nothing is as immersive as symmetry.

That’s why most of my work deals with central symmetry: it’s the most closed system possible.

But the question always remains: what exactly to immerse oneself in. Something beautiful? Something curved, difficult to place in space? Both are interesting in their own way, especially when there is a possibility to combine them. And so, I decided to explore how beauty and ugliness are intertwined in our perception, taking both of them to their absolute.

Email: cutmixcombine@gmail.com Instagram: cutmixcombine

Hover Digital art 2020

128 | Florence Contemporary Gallery

Anticipation Digital art 2020

Florence Contemporary Gallery | 129

Suspense Digital art 2020

130 | Florence Contemporary Gallery

Contemplation Digital art 2020

Florence Contemporary Gallery | 131

Kevser Atalay Statement The painting was created from the depths of my heart and from my deepest feelings.

Longing.

Sometimes you learn that the mere existence of a person is in itself a great blessing

Instagram: latelier_KA

132 | Florence Contemporary Gallery

Archangel Acrylic painting 30x40 cm 2020

Florence Contemporary Gallery | 133

Valeria Gai Born in 1976, Rome.

Her work is characterized by themes inspired by moods. She puts man in his works as a focal point for the viewer, without frills, without physical but only mental places. Her stroke is realistic for direct introspection.

The silent pain of the soul.

An expression of love, suffering and discomfort, a naked realism without artefice, without physical places but only mental. A mute cry in a reality in which, wirthout the strength to speak, all that remains is a deep embrace within ourselves Instagram: Valeriagai_art Email: Leria.gai@libero.it

134 | Florence Contemporary Gallery

Introverte Graphite on paper 28x25, 5 cm 2021

Florence Contemporary Gallery | 135

Benjamin Uggla Benjamin Uggla is an artist living in Stockholm with the roots outside Gothenburg in Sweden. In his art he primarily work with sculpture and has received his education at Konstfack, University of Arts, Crafts and Design.

Statement The figurative sculptures are mirroring our contemporary and everyday life. They express themselves in a colourful manner and are supposed to make us remember what many of us do and what we are.

The sculptural forms was born in a sketchbook many years ago. A spread with a forest environment was under construction when a bush suddenly got eyes, arms and legs. With inspiration from the process the figures evolved over time soon to go from drawings to ceramic sculptures.

The sculptures are made from chamotte clay fired with earthenware glazes in Stockholm, Sweden.

Site: benjaminuggla.com Instagram: benjaminuggla Email: info@benjaminuggla.com

Paralyzed by choices Ceramics (earthenware w. glaze) 15x16x12 cm 2020

136 | Florence Contemporary Gallery

The philosopher Ceramics (earthenware w. glaze) 20x20x16.5 cm 2020

Florence Contemporary Gallery | 137

Let’s do this together Ceramics (earthenware w. glaze) 17x34x14 cm 2020

138 | Florence Contemporary Gallery

Elixir of life Ceramics (earthenware w. glaze) 10.5x16x16 cm 2020

Florence Contemporary Gallery | 139

Mary Badalian Mary Badalian is a contemporary visual artist currently living and working in Yerevan, Armenia.

A lawyer by training, Mary’s interests span international relations, human rights and questions of ethics and integrity which she developed through internships at the Armenian Constitutional Court, Chamber of Advocates and at the UN in Armenia. In parallel to her university studies in law (Slavonic University of Armenia, 2018), Mary rediscovered her passion for art and creativity as a form of self-expression.

For Mary these two paths, although distinct, are interconnected: while the law creates an environment for freedom of thought, art is the expression of that liberty in its most human form.

Since 2017, Mary has immersed herself in a practice of mixed media on canvas that involves intricate embroidery of thread and beads covered by acrylic paint, often in a monochrome palette. Her practice is both an ode to her Grandmother, an avid embroiderer, as well as a “quiet rebellion� as she transforms a traditionally female, domestic craft into large scale works of fine art. Since 2020, Mary Badalian is represented by IN SITU art agency (Armenia).

Statement My artistic practice is marked by interweaving: of thread, materials, but also driving forces of nostalgia and compulsion. After my grandmother passed away in 2017, she left me a collection of threads from Soviet times.

Their colors and textures reminded me of my middle school years when I used to embroider, a hobby that I had completely forgotten until recently.

Compulsion is what led me to merge those threads with an unfinished canvas I had lying around. My process is persistent and repetitive. Embroidering is an especially unrushed, intricate and exigent work. With every piece, I am compelled to immerse myself in that meditative, even therapeutic, process. At times, I approach the canvas with a clear sense of the shapes and forms I want to create. Other times the journey is more intuitive, taking shape as I go, letting the thread guide me. Each piece shelters a story and intense emotions, abstracted and expressed through texture and color. These works and their process are my self-expression and self-exploration.

Instagram: qaminpchi Email: badalianmary@gmail.com

140 | Florence Contemporary Gallery

Nonexistent Character Embroidery floss and glass beads on canvas, acrylic spray paint 60x60 cm 2019

Florence Contemporary Gallery | 141

Giulia Pellegrini Giulia Pellegrini (1990) is an Italian artist living in Bruxelles. After studying Pharmacology, she received a Bachelor’s degree in Paintings and Visual Arts and a Master’s degree in Visual Arts and Curatorial Studies, both at the Naba in Milan.

The scientific studies of her training have influenced her artistic identity. Aware of the changing reality and sensitive to the metamorphosis that occurs in nature, she constantly looking for simplicity and spontaneity of all “beings.”

She tries to perceive and translate the vibration of what is alive in stone, grows in the plant, and palpitates in humans. Furthermore, nature is a central element within her research: the exclusive use of natural materials, often raw fabrics subsequently dyed using dyeing plants, makes her works unique, authentic, and irreplicable.

Site: giuliapellegrini.com Instagram: giuliapellegriniartist

Quel che una roccia sa (what a rock knows) Installation: 100% pure wool fabric, ice, hard coal, sand, calcium carbonate 220x200 cm 2017

142 | Florence Contemporary Gallery

Pando Installation: pure virgin wool, pure cotton thread dyed with tea 210x210x200 cm 2021

Florence Contemporary Gallery | 143

Funicolo (umbilical cord) Photography stamps on cotton thread, wool threads (dyed with red cabbage), stretch cotton 60x22x2 cm 2021

144 | Florence Contemporary Gallery

Lacrima (tear) Photography stamps on cotton thread, resin 75x75 cm 2020

Florence Contemporary Gallery | 145

Zahra Jafarpour born in Iran in 1984 I lived in a strange country in one of the strangest times. Iran`s revolution was new and we passed the war and I couldn`t remember much. Studying fine arts was and still is an uncanny path for my generation in Iran. The financial prospects of being an artist was neither certain nor promising. Drawing was not a job. You could only draw in your free time. Family restrictions and general perception was another obstacle in pursuing fine arts. Due to my parent pressures and social expectations, I have decided to study computer engineering, yet I loved drawing.

When I was studying and I learned drawing, yet the academies were merely focused on techniques. I was curious and enthusiastic for more that techniques and tools.

After graduating in computer engineering, I studied painting in Tehran and then in 2018, I have graduated from Brera Academy of Fine Arts in Painting.

Statement Similarities are more than differences I painted on two square canvases (1.5m*1.5m) showing people who are eating and drinking.

For this project, I asked my friends in Iran (country which I born and lived for 30 years) and Italy (country which I studied and live now) to photograph themselves and their families while they’re eating. And I let my daily life set up some things. For example, I ask my neighbor (who paints nude Models) let me know whenever his pregnant model comes over to his studio. As the pregnant woman drinks, a fetus feeds from her blood. Since it was very unlikely that someone from Italy would send me a picture of a baby, this way I could have an Italian baby in my job, although it’s not seen, but its existence is certain. Or I did not reject my friend’s request for painting her cat too. And as I know more people in Iran, and Iranians are more comfortable in sending photos of their private life, I’ve got more photos from Iran, and as a result, the people of my Iran’s canvas are more than the others. These people, whom I’ve lived with them or I just know them, the people of where I came from and where I live now, the people of the East and West, the East in which I belong to, and the West in which I am a guest in, are very different and very similar to each other. The result that the project had for me, without having planned it, was that the weight of similarity is much heavier. at least in terms of painting. All people have similar behaviors in their hands and face while eating.

The background of the paintings is one green-gray and the other is saturated red, to resemble the colors of the flags of the two countries (Iran and Italy).

We are all human beings in different forms. With the same instinct and similar needs and having common ways to solve them. We have had nature before geography and politics determine something.

Emails: zahrajafarpour@ymail.com Zahrajafarpour84@gmail.com Instagram: zahrajafarpour_artworks

146 | Florence Contemporary Gallery

Untitled Ir. Acrylic on canvas 150x150 cm (each one) 2018

Florence Contemporary Gallery | 147

Vesna Dobricic

Vesna Dobricic was born in 1997 in Belgrade. She graduated from the Faculty of Applied Arts in Belgrade. Currently, she is a Master’s student in Photography. She exhibited her works in various group exhibitions and Biennials in Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, Hungary, South Korea, and online.

Statement Since the beginning of my photographic journey, I was experimenting with different materials, combining digital and analogue elements. My photographs resemble a visual diary, and an emotional response to things I experience in my life. The two most important elements of my work are colour and shape. Since the beginning of 2020, I have been using the cross-polarization applied to plastic materials in my photographs. Since then, I have used one roll of cellophane and one roll of sellotape to create over 100 compositions. I consider this my way of minimizing the use of plastic in my art practise. What intrigues me the most about the technique itself is the relationship between coincidence and control that intertwine all the time. The moment I seemingly gain control of the composition, something unexpected happens that brings me back to the beginning and makes me think. In that process, I could define elements by cutting pieces of cellophane in desired shapes. After that, I could arrange them as many times as I want.

Each time I do that, I get different results.

Email: dobricic216mail.com Instagram: simple_as_vesna Behance: vesnadobricic

Blue composition Digital photography 30x30 cm 2021

148 | Florence Contemporary Gallery

Upside down Digital photography 30x30 cm 2021

Florence Contemporary Gallery | 149

Midnight Digital photography 30x30 cm 2020

150 | Florence Contemporary Gallery

Summer Digital photography 30x30 cm 2020

Florence Contemporary Gallery | 151

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