Miriam Elettra Vaccari: Geography |
Herman Pečarič Gallery, Piran |
31st of August 2019 – 10th of November 2019 |
Curator of the exhibition: Ana Papež Križaj |
Ex tempore Young Author Prize 2018
On the first day of the 2019 edition of Ex-Tempore Piran Miriam Elettra Vaccari, the winner of last year’s edition in the youth category, presented her works in a solo exhibition at the Herman Pečarič Gallery in Piran.
After graduating from the A. Martini Artistic High School, Miriam Elettra Vaccari attended the P. Tacca Technical School of Marble Design in Carrara and enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts of Carrara, in the sculpture department of prof. Francu Mauru Franchijau. In 2012, she graduated in visual arts and sculpture with a dissertation on the relationship between play, entertainment, and contemporary sculpture. At the same time, she attended an alabaster carving course in Volterra. In 2013, she received a scholarship from the Arnaldo Pomodoro Foundation to attend the Art Metal-Working School in Pietrarubbia (Pesaro) for three months. She worked as an intern at the Versiliese Foundry in Pietrasanta. In 2013, she pursued her studies of sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Carrara in the department of prof. Luciano Massari, and in the following years she studied sculpture with prof. Roman Woyniak at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw (Poland). In 2016, she completed her master’s degree with a thesis on contemporary art as a talent. Since 2016 he has been living and working in Portorož. She is employed at the Diego and Vincenzo De Castro Primary School in Piran as a professor of fine arts and technology. She is the mentor of the group of drawing and sculpture at the Italian Community Giuseppe Tartini in Piran and occasionally leads art workshops for children. Since December 2017, she has been organizing exhibitions and other cultural events at the Art Club Predsoba in Piran. She also works as illustrator and graphic designer (Per le antiche vie, text by Lara Sorgo, illustrations by Miriam Elettra Vaccari; Self-governing Community of the Italian Nation, Piran, 2019).
Every year, Piran Coastal Galleries award the best artwork by an author 35 years old or younger. The award, which is in the form of a solo exhibition at the Herman Pečarič Gallery in Piran, was chosen by an international jury of experts.
The jury decided to award Miriam Elettra Vaccari “For the minimalist and conceptual work realized with the embroidery technique. Her seam acts as an abstract line, symbolizing through the metaphor of the technique and the figural motif of a fingerprint the issues of globalization, instability, ethnic, national, religious, sexual, cultural and all other types of identity. Furthermore, her artworks raise the question of the traditional role of women in society and their role as artists”.
In the exhibition, entitled Geography, Miriam plays with different shapes of paper, with its dimensions, reliefs, and layouts. Maps represent three-dimensional space, and thanks to tales and myths we learn how to read and understand them since an early age, knowing what a colour, a sign, or a line on a map means. Reading a map is a reassuring action, as it positions us in a familiar space, in which we can easily orient ourselves. At the same time, it offers us the possibility of exploring the surroundings and getting lost, discovering charming unknown places, pointing out the utopic aspect of trying to represent undefinable concepts as space or the world.
Miriam Elettra Vaccari has a holistic approach to her artistic practice; she studies the properties of various materials, how they react to different solicitations, and redirects their inner nature to her artistic concepts. She tries to keep herself updated by reading all sort of books and news she can find on the subjects she deals with. The artist is also aware of her Mediterranean roots, which influence the geographic motifs of her embroidered artworks; the Mediterranean area is a melting pot where the cultural links and connections overcome the differences between nations.
National borders are shown on every map but are mostly the result of human deliberate decisions. It is up to everyone to decide whether seas, rivers, and other lines that separate us are dividing us from each other or uniting us.
