Photo: Filippo Armellin
Utilizzando la pittura quale metalinguaggio, Cecilia Granara celebra spesso il corpo femminile e il suo stato di coscienza interiore - mentale ed emotivo - incessantemente in divenire. Una dinamicità che proietta nelle grandi tele attraverso una gestione disinvolta dei contorni, appropriandosi del senso più elevato ed estatico della figurazione; sdoppia, moltiplica, incastra, fino ad accogliere fiamme, animali e nature. Come liquidi umorali, lacrime o secrezioni umane di varia natura, le pennellate sfumano i toni acidi delle forme che, vivide su fondi neutri e vibranti, creano scenari atti a risaltare racconti atavici, mutazioni antropomorfe e corpi che si espellono o si intrecciano, fino ad assumere posizioni dal sapore orientale che ricordano lo Yoga o il Savasana.
Granara attua una serena riaffermazione del ruolo universale della donna, attraverso rappresentazioni sessuali libere, gioiose e grottesche al contempo, che descrivono stati di emancipazione, di abbandono o di dolore, prive di qualsiasi limite di genere; una dichiarazione d’amore che in mostra s’incarna nella figura di Sheela-Na-Gig, iconografia scultorea medioevale raffigurante una donna dai grandi occhi e una vulva aperta liberamente, senza vergogna; una metafora dell’essere intellettualmente aperti al mondo, obliando pregiudizi e paure.
L’artista compagina una mostra tessuta di molteplici contaminazioni estetiche ed etimologiche, lontane da ogni morale o etichetta e promuovendo gioiosamente la ricerca di un modello personale autentico; l’abbraccio di quella che lei stessa definisce una “Body Confusion”.
Using painting as metalanguage, Cecilia Granara often celebrates the female body and its state of inner consciousness - mental and emotional – which is in constant flux. This becomes a dynamism that she projects into her large canvasses through an informal handling of outlines, taking possession of the highest and most ecstatic sense of figuration. She splits, multiplies, intertwines, until she embraces flames, animals and nature.
Like humoral liquids, tears, or different types of human secretions, the brush strokes fade the acid tones of forms which, standing out vividly against neutral and vibrant backgrounds, create scenes that bring out atavistic tales, anthropomorphic mutations and bodies that expel or inter-weave with each other, until they assume oriental flavoured positions that reminds us of Yoga or Savasana.
Granara carries out a peaceful re-affirmation of woman's universal role through free, joyful and grotesque sexual representations which, at the same time, describe different states of emancipation, neglect or pain, without any gender limit. This is a love declaration that in the exhibition is embodied in the figure of Sheela-Na-Gig, a medieval sculptural iconography representing a woman with big eyes and a freely open vulva, without shame; it's a metaphor of being intellectually open to the world, forgetting prejudices and fears.
The artist composes an exhibition woven of several aesthetic and etymological contaminations, far from any morality or tag, joyfully promoting the pursuit of an authentic personal model. This is the embrace of what she calls a "Body Confusion".
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Cecilia Granara
Jeddah, 1991 - lives and works in Paris
Studies & Professional Experiences
2013 BA in Fine Art with mention of Honours from Central St Martin’s College of Art and Design
2013 BA in Fine Art from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Arts in Paris
2015 Assistant to Rosalind Nashashibi and Lucy Skaer for the film "Why Are You Angry", Tahiti
2016 Studio Assistant for Francesco Clemente, New York
2019 Scholarship at MFA level, Hunter College New York
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2020 Lasciare Entrare, Lasciare Andare, 2019 Quatre Coeurs, EXO EXO, Paris, The Whole World Weeping, MFA Hunter College, New York City; 2017 Going Inside Or How to Get Over Yourself, Fieldworks Gallery, London
Selected Recent Group Exhibitions
2018 Mais Pas Du Tout! C'est Platement Figuratif, toi tu est Spirituelle Mon Amour!, Jousse Entreprise; NGORO NGORO II, Artists Weekend, Berlin; 2017 Blue But Not Blue, Beaux Arts de Paris, With Isabella Hin; 2016 Fragile, Galerie Mansart, Paris; 2015 Full House, Le Cabinet Dentaire, Paris, Le Corps comme Activateur D'Art Numérique, Carreau Du Temple, Paris, collaboration with Bea Bonafini, Zones D' Utopies Temporaires, L'amour, Bagnolet, Paris, Home Exhibition, Curitiba, Paola De Ramos; 2014 Forests For Fashion, Fondazione Michelangelo Pistoletto, Geneva; 2013 Private Event (Commissioned by Yassmin Gandahari in honor of her donation to Tate Modern) collaboration with Bea Bonafini, Tate Modern, London; Central St. Martin’s College of Art and Design Degree Show, London; Elegia Guest Projects, collaboration with Bea Bonafini, London, Slade Performance Day, with Bea Bonafini, Camden Arts Centre, London, Bodies of Silence, collaboration with Bea Bonafini, Platform Café, London, The Strange Impression of Seeing Things For The First Time, Mile End Art Pavilion, London