The delicacy of life in Beatrice Pediconi's solo exhibition in Rome

The z2o Sara Zanin Art Gallery in Rome hosts from Sept. 20 to Nov. 10, 2024 the exhibition ...without disturbing a star, the fourth solo show of artist Beatrice Pediconi, curated by Antonello Tolve. Adopting water as a medium to give life to chromatically ethereal and iridescent images, Beatrice Pediconi proposes a new nucleus of works where painting, photography and drawing intersect to highlight a practice of art understood as a never-ending exercise of investigation into the world of life and the thousands of meanings that affect it. After a series of important experiments, Beatrice Pediconi presents compositions in which natural scenarios are evoked and invite the audience to rediscover the delicacy of a flower or a butterfly that coincides with the fragility of life. In addition to a perfect and harmonious operation that leads to an elusive process, the uniqueness of the new works also lies in the titles of the works, chosen by the artist and extrapolated from poems, short stories, novels or even essays, to amplify the evocative level of the image. Trees are sanctuaries (2024) is, for example, a title borrowed from writer Herman Hesse’s Bäume, according to which trees are symbols linked to remembrance, transience and rebirth, but also to instinctive and natural growth, carefreeness and fertility.

“My latest body of work is the result of a process that explores a combination of painting, drawing and photography. Emulsion filaments subtracted from Polaroid scraps are transferred to water on canvas and paper both previously painted with pigments of various shades. Evanescent traces remain, witnessing loss and regeneration. Minimal and organic, many of these works are reminiscent of flowers, thus reflecting the fragility of life, its inevitable progression toward renewal, and its message of hope in times laden with destruction.”

Notes on the artist

Beatrice Pediconi (Rome, 1972) lives and works in Queens, New York. A multimedia artist whose work is situated within a broader discourse on the status of drawing, photography, painting and video, Pediconi makes unconventional works that eschew the sharpest forms of categorization, crossing the thin line between traditional media. Employing water as the main medium to create subtle, floating images, his research investigates the fleeting, precarious and vulnerable condition of transience. His work has been shown in international exhibitions including Presences, National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art, Rome (2023), Cinema Ephemera, Central Brooklyn Public Library, NY, (2020); NUCLEUS/Imagining Science, Groningen, The Netherlands (2017); Sequences VII, Real Time Art Festival, Reykjavik, Iceland (2015); Ensembles, Quand la Maison Européenne de la Photographie Collectionne, Les Rencontres d’Arles, France (2015); Untitled 2009, Macro Museo di Arte Contemporanea, Rome (2015); 9’/Unlimited, Collezione Maramotti, Reggio Emilia (2013); The Polaroid Years, The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, New York (2013); The Edge of Vision, Schneider Museum of Art, Ashland, Oregon (2012). His works have been acquired by major public and private collections including La Galleria Nazionale di Arte Moderna e Contemporanea (Rome), Maison Européenne de la Photographie (Paris), Lucid Art Foundation (San Francisco) and Collezione Maramotti (Reggio Emilia).

Image: Beatrice Pediconi, A red poppy without plucking its flower, detail (2024, 92 x 122 cm). Photo by Dario Lasagni

The delicacy of life in Beatrice Pediconi's solo exhibition in Rome

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