ANTONIETTA ORSATTI: “Ora ti racconto, non c’erano solo i fiori” (This is my story, it wasn’t all roses)rn
Curated by Paolo Cortesern
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On Saturday 12 October at 6 pm, on Contemporary Art Day promoted by AMACI, the solo exhibition of Antonietta Orsatti “Ora ti racconto, non c’erano solo i fiori”, curated by Paolo Cortese will be inaugurated in Rome in the independent space Lettera_E.rn
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This is the first solo exhibition in Rome of the artist from Abruzzo. Over 30 works are on display including two-dimensional works, sketchbooks and sculptures made with terracotta, cardboard and pinstriped fabric.rn
The exhibition focuses on her original way of narrating stories depicted on different kinds of support. In creating her tales, the artist depicts a thread of ideas inspired by finding fragments of paper, or by memories and suggestions that emerge in her dreams. Anything acts as a starting point and a source of inspiration for her. With a curious childlike spirit, Orsatti freely interprets her narrative thread that unravels through fantasy, imagination and the timeless memories of her childhood.rn
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Her creative impetus, however, is punctuated by rigorous geometric constructions that give balance to her works. Orsatti’s numerous albums with drawings, sketches, collages and even just single sheets (often objets trouvés) of all sizes are filled with her reinterpretation of fairy tales linked to local tales and folklore. She uses unconventional materials with fascinating ease, such as cardboard, to create theatres and sculptures.rn
Orsatti experimented with organic shapes and figures, shaping perforated bricks when they were still fresh and fired them in the kiln that belonged to her husband's family.rn
Among the works on display, 4 large cones made of completely historiated pinstripe fabric stand out. The artist explains that they reminded her of the conical wrappers used in her father's pasta factory to sell pasta, in the post-war period.rn
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The exhibition, created in collaboration with Gramma_Epsilon Gallery in Athens, is part of a project dedicated to women artists who have worked independently, often far from the art market, and is accompanied by a catalogue edited by Paolo Cortese with a presentation by Alfredo Accatino, an expert on Outsider art.rn
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Antonietta Orsatti was born in Casacanditella (Chieti) in 1940. She began as a self-taught artist, and later followed a ceramics course directed by Tommaso Cascella at the Art Institute of Chieti. She enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome where she studied sculpture with Pericle Fazzini and Goffredo Verginelli. Meanwhile, she also attended a fresco course the School of Decorative Arts in Via San Giacomo. In 1967 she graduated with a thesis about the stonemason Felice Antonio Giuliante (1885-1961). In the same year she married and returned to live permanently in Abruzzo, where she taught drawing and art history in high schools. Since then, she has worked independently, with little involvement in any exhibition activity. rn
She developed an original process of shaping hollow bricks which, engraved and modelled while still fresh and then fired in a kiln, could then be used as an expressive support for her stories. On canvases she paints episodes in encaustic, linking figures with the associative geometry of her dreams. In more recent years she has been working on drawings and sculptures using recycled cardboard. rn
Since 2021 she has resumed sculpting stone, completing a cycle of high reliefs.rn
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Antonietta Orsatti “Ora ti racconto, non c’erano solo i fiori” (This is my story, it wasn’t all roses)rn
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Curator: Paolo Cortesern
12 October – 16 November 2024rn
Via Muzio Attendolo, 14rn
00176 Romarn
Open: Tuesday to Saturday 16-20 or by appointmentrn
Info: +39 3392548361rn
info@grammaepsilon.comrn
wwww.grammaepsilon.comrn
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