Franca Pisani - The Canton of Origins

Work published in "Franca Pisani - Attraversamenti", edited by Gianluigi Renzi, Maretti Editore, 2010.

The work draws on an Informal aesthetic language. The devastation wrought by the Second World War left a profound mark on Western civilization, which in the visual arts also resulted in an inability to communicate. For some artists, this challenge resulted in a total rejection of any visual language, resulting in the birth of Informal Art. The various Informal movements are certainly connected to American Abstract Expressionism, especially with regard to the gestural component, but they go further in their rejection of any figurative element, even geometric. Their research focuses instead on the material with which they compose their works. Always committed to the exploration of experimental aesthetic languages, aiming to subvert the rules of traditional figuration and achieve complete creative freedom, artist and performer Franca Pisani has long since found the stylistic signature most suited to her in a more specifically symbolic Informal Art.

For Franca Pisani, the sign is an element of passive rebellion against an art burdened by the historical superstructures it carries with it. Franca is therefore seeking a sign that is both a manual tracing and a pure creative act. For this reason, the sign, in most of her works, takes the form of an irregular path, almost subject to a spontaneous development of branches and connections at the same time. Furthermore, the sign must also be something tangible, that enters the viewer's real dimension and definitively emerges from an abstract dimension. For this reason, Franca Pisani's compositions often take on a material and three-dimensional connotation, given by the use, along with pictorial media, of concrete materials such as oxides. In this particular work, Franca Pisani's characteristic branched sign emerges entirely from the canvas. The connections identified by the artist's gesture thus take the form of actual seams, scars on the work's support. The composition thus takes on a strong aesthetic impact that must be identified not only in the artist's marked informal streak, but also in the expressive power of so-called Brutalist art and the poetics of Arte Povera that are part of Franca Pisani's formative background.

Franca Pisani was born in Grosseto in 1956 to a family of artists. At the age of nine, encouraged by her precocious talent, she attended the studio of sculptor and painter Alessio Sozzi, who taught her all the painting techniques: fresco, oil, pastel, watercolor, mixed media, but above all sculpture, drawing on Etruscan techniques, clay, and earth tones. Maestro Sozzi encouraged her to tenaciously pursue art and study in Florence, the cradle of the Renaissance. As a student, she avidly frequented the Uffizi Gallery, unaware that her work would eventually be displayed there, in the Vasari Corridor, in the Self-Portraits Collection. In December 2014, she participated in the "Backstage Exhibition" at the Uffizi, and after the exhibition, her self-portrait, along with that of Bill Viola, was exhibited in the Vasari Corridor.

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