Sbrana’s private geography at the Syracuse University

FLORENCE, ITALY – The Studio art Department at Syracuse University to present the solo exhibition “Private geography: art as a materla epiphany” by the artist Caterina Sbrana and curated by Paola Bortolotti on March 25th, 2013.

For the exhibition, Sbrana has elaborated a site-specific project in the rooms of the Villa Rossa of Syracuse University in Florence, presenting new drawings on Japanese paper as well as an astonishing installation made of turf.

25 MARCH 2013 \ 17:30 \ Piazzale Donatello, 21 \ The Artist will give a talk on her work \ Open to the Public 25 MARCH 2013 \ 18:15 – 21:00 \ Syracuse University \ Piazza Savonarola, 15 \ The Exhibition and Vernissage \ Refreshments will be served \ Open to the Public.

Sbrana’s research is an investigation of nature and an interpretation of the natural world made with organic materials that she utilizes for drawing and painting. She often paints with a liquid ‘pigment’ made from herbs, flowers and roots or a combination of earth and water. For ‘Private Geography’ she has chosen to work with poppy flower capsules as the material. The result is a beautiful bestiary with images of animals: some jumping out of or into the piece of paper, and some depicted while resting in the ambiguous (dead? just sleeping?) posture of zoomorphic Vanitas.

The clay installation is designed to cover a portion of an elegant wooden floor inside the nineteenth century SUF Villa Rossa. The tiles of dry clay are obtained by making molds of the soil where Sbrana habitually finds the plants and the flowers with which she paints and draws. These traces of mud are conceptually left by her daily walking in and out her own space, writing a sort of journal that narrates the hours spent in thinking and speculating while moving around in a personal geography.

Caterina Sbrana was born in Pisa. After pursuing classical studies she moved to Perugia, where she earned her degree in painting restoration at the Istituto Europeo delle Arti Operative. She continued to pursue her studies at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Carrara with Omar Galliani. In 2003, she was awarded a special jury mention for her Ofelia di fango (Mud Ophelia) in the Premio Nazionale delle Arti in Rome. In 2010-11 she was selected by CCC Strozzina of Florence for the Open Studios Project. In 2011, she partecipated in the 54°Biennal of Venice, Italy, Pavilion Academies, Arsenale Novissimo – Tese di San Cristoforo. She has participated in numerous group and solo exhibitions, as ‘Osservazione della natura in stato di quiete’ at the Marino Marini Museum, Florence, curated by Paola Bortolotti, in 2012.