WORKS
SINUS
The series of works titled Sinus has its origin in 2015, with a large painting on paper inspired by the Venetian cloistered monastery and shelter of Sant’Andrea della Zirada; after a long break, it resumes in 2024 with a radical stylistic change, featuring two meticulous oil paintings on rose gold plates. The interweaving of small plants and precious foliage covers the semi-transparent gold surface in a dense, capillary courtain. The rhythmic design draws from the classical iconography of the locus amoenus, the hortus conclusus. As the title of the work attests, Sinus, the concept of shelter, refuge is transliterated and declined in the different meanings: shelter as a metaphor for the womb, bed of purity in relation to the womb of the Virgin Mary. The work—which has its symbolic roots in the pagan themes of prosperity and fertility of the earth—evaporates in an aura of spirituality, sacredness and mystery. The choice of rose-gold plate as support for the paintings lays in the myth of the iron-worker as a mythological figure, a prophet. In addition it is connected to the concept behind the word sider, used to describe both little pieces of precious metals (such as those that spread out while working to forge the gold) and stars. In this idyllic union of earth and sky, a broad and evocative allegorical register opens up, connected to the image of a maternal breast as protection and cradle.
Sinus, diptych, 2024 oil on rose gold plates, 6×4 in | 15,3×10,2 cm
Courtesy Atipografia gallery
CURSES, SPELLS, AND OTHER MAGICS
[…] Central to her research path was the exhibition she visited at MET Africa & Byzantium. Here Bertaglia had the opportunity to look at some precious papers representing spells and rituals against evil spells and curses. If in her earlier works the oneiric took on an almost fairy-tale value, here and now the fairy-tale element is replaced by the element of magic. “The ritual returns, the threshold is present, but everything is powerfully cast in a reality as lucid as it is distorted. The vision of daydreaming, of unconsciousness, has been set aside to unveil an awareness of reality on which the artist investigates, produces spells, bewitches materials and invents worlds in order to somehow quell it”. […]
Martina Corbetta and Elisa Bertaglia on the series Enchantments and The Spells presented in the two-person show Curses, Spells, and Other Magics at Martina Corbetta gallery.
The Spell. Healing from a Broken Heart, 2024 oil on rose-gold plate, 6×4 in | 15,3×10,2 cm
Courtesy Martina Corbetta gallery. Ph: Cosimo Filippini
The Spell. Healing from a Broken Heart, 2024 oil on rose-gold plate, 6×4 in | 15,3×10,2 cm
Courtesy Martina Corbetta gallery. Ph: Cosimo Filippini
Enchantment #4, 2024 oil on rose gold plate, 6×4 in | 15,3×10,2 cm
The Spell, 2024 oil and pastels on 10 paper sheets, 34.5×61 in | 88×155 cm
Courtesy Martina Corbetta gallery. Ph: Cosimo Filippini
Enchantment #5, 2024 oil on rose gold plate, 6×4 in | 15,3×10,2 cm
Courtesy Martina Corbetta gallery. Ph: Cosimo Filippini
Enchantment, 2024 oil on engraved rose-gold plates, 10×8 in | 25,4×20,3 cm
Courtesy SARAHCCROWN gallery New York
Elianto, 2024 oil on canvas, 43.25×35.5 in | 100×90 cm
Courtesy Martina Corbetta gallery. Ph: Cosimo Filippini
A DANCE series
“[…] The exploration of concepts of coexistence of life-death and rebirth are a constant in Bertaglia’s art, expressed through her personal and well-refined symbolism which has become increasingly abstract over the past two years. This new and unreleased series, inspired by Tibetan representations of indigenous narratives of reincarnation and celestial realms, is characterized by shades of tart oranges and placid greenish blues, haunting foliage, and allusions to the symbol of the skull. Areas of dense paint, light color washes and detailed engravings meet on the shiny surfaces. The mirroring and reflecting areas amplify their dimension and invite the viewer to lean in and begin an intimate dialogue with the works and themselves.
With this new series, Bertaglia makes a strong statement about her ability to play with the perception of reality, myth, and actual representation, in an effort to dance between the opposites and to envision different states of existence.”
Sarah Corona
“A Dance”, 2023 oil on rose gold plate, 6×4 in | 15,3×10,2 cm
Courtesy SARAHCROWN gallery New York
“A Dance”, 2023 oil on rose gold plate, 6×4 in | 15,3×10,2 cm
Courtesy SARAHCROWN gallery New York
Installation view: A Dance, solo show curated by Sarah Corona at SARAHCROWN gallery New York
A Dance #5, 2023 oil on rose gold, 6×4 in | 15,3×10,2 cm
Courtesy SARAHCROWN gallery New York
LES SIMULACRES
Quoting the concept of simulacrum, Les Simulacres—image, semblance, ghost, illusion—summarizes the common theme that unites the body of works created over the last two years between the United States and Italy.
The symbols and the metaphorical language have always been the basis of Elisa Bertaglia’s artistic research, but the idea of the emblem as a semantic threshold has recently become the center of her work.
The exhibition—made up of drawings on paper and oil paintings on canvas and aluminum—testifies the growth of the artist that shows today a diversified repertoire of images and allegories, even though her style is still recognizable by poetics and technique.
Les Simulacres, 2023 oil and graphite on copper, 7×5 in | 17,8×12,7 cm
Les Simulachres #1,2022 oil on alluminum, 7×5 in | 17,8×12,7 cm
Les Simulachres #1,2022 oil on alluminum, 7×5 in | 17,8×12,7 cm
Danza macabra, 2021-2023 oil on canvas, 51.5×39.5 in | 130×100 cm
Danse Macabre, 2023 oil on aluminum, 7×5 in | 17,8×12,7 cm
Schwarzheide—quoting Luc Tuymans, 2020-2023 oil, charcoal and graphite on canvas, 55×86.5 in | 140×220 cm
Courtesy Martina Corbetta gallery Ph: Cosimo Filippini
CENDRIERS
by Carmen Roll
“As if outside of time and space, Elisa Bertaglia’s works appear to us under the surprising title Cendriers, a title that the artist uses to create and enter into dialogue with the book by French writer and translator Florence Delay, Mes Cendrieris (My Ashtrays), published for the first time in 2010. Through ashtray as metaphor, Delay investigates the fugacity of our time, offering a melancholic but provocative critique of our contemporaneity. The superficial, almost banal, contemplation of multi-faceted ashtrays – that as a passionate smoker Delays gathers and collects – wakes submerged memories in the writer and also acts as specular reflection of the writer herself. In this way, a complex and intimate self-portrait emerges”.
Cendriers, 2018-2019 bamboo, oil, charcoal and pencil on paper, 94.5×48.5 in | 240×123 cm
Courtesy Galerie MZ, Augsburg, Germany
Cendriers, diptych, 2018-2019 charcoal and pencil on canvas, 14.5×10.75 in | 36,5×27,5 cm each
Cendriers, 2018-2019 charcoal and pencil on overlapped transparent polyester sheets, 12×9 in | 30,5×23 cm
CONCERTO. SINGING OVER THE BONES
by Rossella Farinotti
Symbologies and rituals to accomplish. Meticulously stratified abstract figures that cover ambiguous formal mentions of details of little girl bodies, deer or dogs, and re-elaborate an always more complex vision. Different materials – canvases, Japanese papers, silk, concrete, bones, ceramic – used after an intense study and a restless research; new sculptures – the first ever realized by the artist – in concrete and fish bones, that have the function of totems to observe and overstep. The path of Concerto. Singing over the Bones can start from a list of elements that Elisa Bertaglia has re-elaborated and put in a static pose on paintings, drawings and sculptures after having worked on a new body of works for over two years. […] Her paintings and drawings speak clearly: they are labyrinths dense of enigmatic ambiguous shapes and signs.
Some of them are light – such as the graphite ones that step by step allow the beneficiary to discover always smaller and elaborated figures – others made with oil color are more tangible in the material and in the glance. […]
Singing Over the Bones, 2019 watercolor, oil, charcoal and graphite on canvas and silk, 60.75×47.25 in | 154×120 cm each
Singing Over the Bones, 2019 watercolor and oil on silk, concrete, 14.5x45x4.25 in | 36,5x114x11 cm
Singing Over the Bones, 2019 oil, charcoal, pastels and graphite on paper and silk 62.75×41.5 in | 159,5×105,5 cm
Singing Over the Bones, 2019 oil, charcoal and pencil on paper, 12×9 in | 30,5×23 cm
Singing Over the Bones, 2019 oil, charcoal and pencil on paper, 12×9 in | 30,5×23 cm
Singing Over the Bones, 2019 oil, charcoal and pencil on paper, 12×9 in | 30,5×23 cm
POPULUS
The title chosen for this series of paintings focuses on the ambivalence of the Latin word ‘populus,’ which can be translated in two different ways: ‘people’ and ‘poplar.’ Tradition has it that the name populus was given to the poplar because of the intense rustling of its foliage, reminiscent of the hubbub of a crowd. It alludes to a symbolic representation populated by a multitude of different characters. The main roots of Bertaglia’s imagery germinate in this cycle of drawings, investigating the suggestive and ambiguous aspects of a private narrative. The group of children, animals and plants addresses a scenario in which the represented elements are connected and discuss around the crucial themes of my poetics.
54ma Venice Biennale, Accademie Pavilion, 2011
Populus III, 2011 oil, marker, charcoal, and pastels on paper, variable dimensions
Populus III, 2011 oil, pastels, charcoal and graphite on paper, 11.5×8 in | 29,5×20,5 cm
Populus III, 2011 oil, pastels, charcoal and graphite on paper, 8×5 in | 20,5×12,5 cm
Populus III, 2011 oil, pastels, charcoal and graphite on paper, 8×5 in | 20,5×12,5 cm
Populus III, 2011 oil, pastels, charcoal and graphite on paper, 8×5 in | 20,5×12,5 cm