Isabella Gherardi Biography
Isabella Gherardi was born in Rome in 1962. Her artistic research moves between drawing, photography, painting, installation and marble sculpture. Among the cycles of works we remember "Sere", on the theme of nature; the "Bilder" series, on the female nude and ink drawing; "Fayum", photographic self-portraits and gold leaf; "Myths", imaginary portraits of heroines; "Self-portraits", watercolors layered on female faces and bodies; "Still Lives", photographic works where the study of color predominates. "Sere" is a research that the artist has been carrying out since the beginning and has nature, botanical gardens and greenhouses as its subject. The subjects captured with the Hasselblad are then reworked in the studio by combining refined collages, very fine drawings and color nuances. All this gives the new image an aura of rarefaction. Reality transforms into a suspended and timeless atmosphere. Isabella Gherardi's work unfolds over time with extraordinary coherence and with rigorous control of her poetics aimed at nature and the architectural spaces intended to protect it, such as greenhouses. Precisely these places were investigated by her already in the 90s with a series of photographs that made her known throughout the world. The artist lived and worked for a long time in New York. Her architectural studies and loyalty to her Hasselblad led her to combine drawing with photography, human space with that of plants. Isabella Gherardi's poetry revolves around these themes. The greenhouses recall the idea of a protective architectural space, of real survival cells. Gardens are the liberation from human space and the apotheosis of greenery, even in its social and "subversive" value. Something that for us is the memory of a lost homeland and the hope of a new world. The artist always combines the sensitivity and culture of man with the prodigious vitality of natural energies.
