Francesca Bernardini: marble under tension

The Italian artist Francesca Bernardini has developed a relationship with marble that is deeply intimate. “If I treat it well, I will get back what I expect from it”, she says.  Both a personal journal and an archive of her relationship with the world, her work speaks to us about introspection and openness to others, childhood, and aspirations in adulthood. Her sculptures are charged with a tension in which viewers find a reflection of their own impulses and of these inner oscillations that words cannot express.

Born in Carrara, a city in Tuscany renowned for housing the most prestigious marble quarries in the world, Francesca Bernardini has chosen this material to craft a visual language of immense originality.

Marble is at once the depository, the interpreter and the archive of her relationship with the world. The artist creates forms that echo her inner states of mind. She appropriates them and amplifies certain details or certain proportions until she reaches a convergence point of what she observes on the outside and what she feels on the inside.

Her register is one of intimacy, intuition, the knowledge that is acquired by attentive and direct observation of the things that surround us, our relationship with others, our needs, and our impulses.  Because this life experience, these emotions, and these feelings are shared by all of us, her works resonate in each viewer: she talks to us about the need for protection and safety (Nests, Cocoons, Crysalises series) as well as the need for communication (Connections series), about the tenderness of childhood memories (From the Abyss series) and about motherhood.

There is a tension that flows through the smooth forms of her sculptures, skimming the surface of the marble, like the chrysalis that seems to be on the verge of breaking open. “The chrysalis or the cocoon evokes within me an evolution, a desire to grow, to change for the better”, explains the artist. “I am fascinated by these little shelters where one can feel the pulse of life from inside. And by this moment of extreme tension when a chrysalis is on the verge of breaking open, or a seed is about to sprout. This is something that has greatly inspired my research. This tension is what I am looking for in my sculpture. I like it when the lines are flawless and fast-flowing, with no interruptions. I like this dynamism.”

It is also for this reason that the artist prefers to work with a uniform color of marble like black, white, or gray. She strives to discard anything that could disrupt the flow of volumes and distract the eye of her viewers, losing them in details rather than allowing them to apprehend the sculpture as a whole.

However, she sometimes enhances her sculptures with a few subtle touches of colored enamel to reawaken the amazement and wonder evoked by the discovery of nature when it is observed for the first time.

About the artist:

Francesca Bernardini was born in 1974 in Carrara, in the Italian region of Tuscany. She graduated in sculpture from the Academy of Fine Arts in Carrara in 1999 and began working in a historic workshop in the city, where she studied the traditional techniques of marble carving. Since the early 2000s, her work has been exhibited internationally in institutions and galleries, particularly in Europe and Asia.

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