Federica Patera and Andrea Sbra Perego
FEDERICA PATERA
ANDREA SBRA PEREGO
BIO
Federica Patera and Andrea Sbra Perego, namely tying literature and art with a thread.
Their collaboration combines the experiences of both in a common work, with the intention of being a bridge, a confluence of the two disciplines.
Andrea (Bergamo, 1982) lives and works in Turin. His practice is mainly focused on painting, but his experiences range from photography to video, from sculpture to installation. His artistic research is fed by travels aimed at investigating the close relationship between man and his environment. Man is the main actor in the interaction with urban space. The place where he stays is always humanized and testifies to the conditioning that society imposes on nature.
Federica (Bergamo, 1982) also lives and works in Turin. She focuses her studies on the concepts of translation and eternity, to tell and understand how reality is built, tracing what remains unchanged in it and therefore does not fall into spatial or chronological categories, but uses them to manifest. The use of fixed languages and sacred texts, which go beyond the historical method, is the means to carry out an overcoming of the individual sphere. The intent is to bring attention back to a universal language. Writing and fabric are her working tools.
The duo was officially born in 2017 with the RAR project, which focuses on the value of the analogy in literature. At the heart of their investigation is the dynamic that leads reading to become writing, and other way the user to become a creator, a maker, mixing roles.
The exchange that is established guarantees the transmission, that it goes beyond repetition and finds its completion in transformation. The eternity of an experience, whatever it is (physical, material, emotional, intellectual), is measured by its capacity to be an eternal breeding ground for discovery and knowledge.
Their work was exhibited in solo shows by art galleries, such as Raffaella De Chirico Contemporary Art in Turin and Manuel Zoia Gallery in Milan, and in Art Fair such as ArtVerona and WOP in Lugano (CH). In 2021 they were finalists in the Cramum Award. Between October 2022 and January 2023, they took part in the World Textile Biennale – Italian Act, a series of three exhibitions promoted by ArteMorbida Textile Art Magazine and curated by Barbara Pavan. In January 2023 they attended their first show in New York at the Ivy Brown Gallery.
In addition to the activity of artists, in 2021 they founded DRIM | Contemporary art ground, an artist run space in the heart of Turin. With DRIM, they managed, organized and sponsored 12 exhibits of emerging national and international artists.
SEM: UNITY, 2023
Regenerated nylon yarn derived from pre and post industrial waste, steel wire. Site specific installation, variable dimensions
The site-specific installation is dedicated to the root √Sem and tells its verbal filiation starting from the concept of unity, as the title makes clear: Sem: Unity. The body of the artwork is made by rows of words belonging to different languages – from Latin to Armenian, from English to Sanskrit – and generated from a single root full of meanings that flank each other.
Equality, identity, symmetry, appearance, permanence and immediacy, unification and loneliness, simplicity and quietude are the various aspects of unity used in the work to tell, through words, the ways it assumes in the world starting from √Sem.
TECNICA, 2021
Foil stamping on sewed cotton canvas, wool threads, mirror, pins, iron 120 x 90 x 90 cm.
Twenty excerpts have been picked out from eleven literary works in order to compose an original text that explores the link between human beings and nature, future and selfishness, and to be also a critical text with the function of guiding the work from the inside. The title refers to a quote that defines the technique as an artifice and the instrument of man to resemble the animal – and dominate it. The dialogue among miscellaneous texts, the theme of reversing connected to the looking-glass that recurs through the excerpts, as well as the use of threads, make Tecnica an extended relay which recounts a transformation, which acquires old-age features when it reaches the boundaries of future.
IOCARI SERIO, 2022
Regenerated nylon yarn derived from pre and post industrial waste, fiber padding, pvc pipes 280 x 280 x 200 cm
Iocari serio is the title of the installation based on the book of the same name by Ioan Petru Culianu, an innovative historian of the religions of the Twentieth century.
In his books, Culianu underlines the link between play and the ineffable; identifies play as one of the fundamental keys to access the mystery of creation. And, for this reason, Iocari serio looks like a game and, at the same time, is a linguistic journey at the discovery of the literal and metaphorical meaning, hence symbolic, often belonging to verbal roots. In particular, it unfolds the relationship between two of the most ancient theophanies: sun and swan, starting from Indo- European root √Swen. In Iocari serio, different words and languages follow one another in ramifications, exploiting the elasticity, malleability and softness, almost welcoming and wholly playful, of colored cords entwined in a three-dimensional map similar to a circulatory system. As artists, we explore those areas that are difficult to reach, hidden; we want to speak about “what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us” and shows its crucial role.
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Federica Patera e Andrea Sbra Perego
andreasbraperego@gmail.com
ITA mobile: +39 334 2014286
