ARTIST STATEMENT
While rooted in traditional methods, my paintings often experiment with dimensionality. My work lives in the in between: between myth and memory, seduction and unease, clarity and blur. My work circles around the ways women are idolized, feared, romanticized, misread, and how those ideas seep into our bodies across time. I borrow from tropes like the femme fatale. I’m inspired by lineage. I distort, skew, crop reference photos to accomplish unease. A figure may take up space confidently, yet dissolve at the edges; a gesture freezes, but feels like it might slip away if you blink.
Formally, I’m obsessed with what paint can do when it misbehaves. I layer, scrape, glaze, blur, and interrupt, letting surfaces hold contradictions. Influenced by artists like Gerhard Richter, I use blur like a verb: it slows the eye, distorts memory, and asks whether we’re seeing clearly or simply projecting. I source from found images, and partake in 35mm film photoshoots. I value the use of color in off putting senses. intense reds and greens, playing with blaring highlights.
My work is driven by a persistent question: Who gets to author women’s stories, and what happens when we rewrite them ourselves? I want the paintings to seduce you in, then complicate the view. I create a space where soft, electric discomfort of beauty and doubt share the same room.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
I studied painting for two years in Florence, Italy. Following that, I moved to Chicago continuing my studies at the School of the Art Institute. I will be continuing my studies at UAL this summer.
© Francesca Bertani