Tamara Ferioli, POISONOUS POISE

Stanza 9

«The body is the place where the informations about my experience are reflected. A meeting point between me and the world. A place haunted by ‘ghosts’ that I try to unmask and discover their identity, in the dark, through a process of filtration of chaos, until I obtain a white distillate. An emotional ossuary. All the elements I use are symbols rooted in my experiences, they have multiple meanings, I choose them, use them and associate them instinctively, only discovering their meaning later. Nothing, in the end, turns out to be random. I am particularly attached to hair, which is not only the oldest tissue from which DNA sequences have been obtained so far, but also has the power to conceal… They tie themselves in knots, they inhabit my house, they absorb smells. Often the rest of our body expresses itself through them, perhaps because they are at the end… A bit like the tip of a pencil. The continuous use of unconventional materials is a desperate attempt to reveal the implicit, the inaudible in the sound of words, boxes that are too small to hear. The mere use of conventional, prefabricated materials for artists would be like putting a further fence around my inner monologues and soliloquies, an obstacle as much as speech is. If I could express myself by speaking, I would do so.»
Tamara Ferioli

«In Tamara Ferioli’s works, intimate reflection on existential discomfort is translated into a delicate but incisive drawing, played on the reiteration of restless female figures, on the insertion of extraneous bodies such as human hair, wine stains or fragments of wallpaper, disturbing elements that, in truth, highlight the organic traces of everyday life. These works are made on boards covered with layers of delicate, almost transparent paper, used by the artist as veils to soften the immediacy of the drawing. Tamara Ferioli’s line softly outlines the contours of enigmatic and tormented girls, whose nakedness reflects a sense of vulnerability and perhaps inadequacy. In her research, however, there is a lyrical tension that seems to attenuate the apparent pessimistic imprinting, translating the graphic representation of the unconscious and emotional experience into a fantastic and unreal dimension.
Ivan Quaroni

THE ARTIST

Tamara Ferioli was born in Legnano in the province of Milan in 1982. Between 2004 and 2005 she attended the Ecole des Beaux Arts de Lyon and in March 2006 she graduated from the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera in Milan. She lives and works in Milan. Her artistic production is articulated through different expressive languages such as sculpture, installation, drawing and applications on canvas. Since 2003 she has exhibited in numerous Italian cities and in 2008 in Berlin and London. In the same year she held the exhibition Enkefalina abreazioni aCute at the Obraz gallery in Milan.