selected works
installations
about Federica Patera and Andrea Sbra Perego, namely to connect literature and art with a thread. Their collaboration combines both experiences in a common work, with the intention of being a bridge, a confluence of the two disciplines.
about Andrea, born in Bergamo in 1982, lives and works in Turin. His practice is mainly focused on painting, but his experiences range from photography to video, from sculpture to installation. His artistic research is fed by travels and experiences aimed at investigating the close relationship between man and his environment. Man is the main actor in the interaction with urban space. The place where he stays is always humanized and testifies to the conditioning that society imposes on nature.
Federica, also born in Bergamo in 1982 and lives in Turin. She focuses her studies on the concepts of translation and eternity, to tell and understand how reality is built, tracing what remains unchanged in it, and therefore does not fall into categories neither spatial or chronological, but uses them to manifest. The use of fixed languages and sacred texts, which go beyond the historical method, is the means to carry out an overcoming of the individual sphere. The intent is to bring attention back to a universal language. The writing and the fabric are her working tools.
The duo was officially born in 2017 with the RAR project, which focuses on the value of the analogy in literature. At the heart of their investigation is the dynamic that leads reading to become writing, and other way the user to become a creator, a maker, mixing roles.
The exchange that is established guarantees the transmission, that it goes beyond repetition and finds its completion in transformation. The eternity of an experience, whatever it is (physical, material, emotional, intellectual), is measured by its capacity to be an eternal breeding ground for discovery and knowledge.
Their work was exhibited in solo shows by art galleries, such as Raffaella De Chirico Contemporary Art in Turin and Manuel Zoia Gallery in Milan, and in Art Fair such as ArtVerona and WOP in Lugano (CH). In 2021, they were finalists in the Cramum Award. Between October 2022 and January 2023, they will take part in the World Textile Biennale – Italian Act, a series of three exhibitions curated by Barbara Pavan. In January 2023 they attend their first group show in New York at The Ivy Brown Gallery.
In addition to the activity of artists, in 2021 they founded DRIM | Contemporary art ground, an artist run space in the heart of Turin. With DRIM, they managed, organized and sponsored 12 exhibits of emerging national and international artists.
CV
AS ARTISTIC DUO
Upcoming
June 2023 – Artist Residency at NY20+ Chengdu (CHN) March 2023 – UnFair, with Manuel Zoia Gallery, Milan (IT)
Past
January 2023 – The Ongoing Tale; Manuel Zoia Gallery, Milan (IT) January 2023 – A Whole Box of Chocolate (group show); Mothership NYC, New York (USA) January 2023 – 25° WTA, Fiberstorming, curated by Barbara Pavan; Former University, Bergamo (IT) January 2023 – Critically Random (group show); Ivy Brown Gallery, New York (USA) January 2023 – 25° WTA, Inferno-Paradiso, curated by Barbara Pavan; BAF Bergamo Art Fair, Bergamo (IT) October 2022 – Art Verona fair, with Manuel Zoia Gallery, Verona (IT) October 2022 – The Soft Revolution, curated by Barbara Pavan; Textile Museum, Busto Arsizio (IT) May 2022 – Tĕxere, curated by Barbara Pavan and Susanna Cati; SCD Textile and art studio, Perugia (IT) April 2022 – Extended version; Raffaella De Chirico arte contemporanea, Turin (IT) October 2021 – Note senza testo, curated by Cristina Cuttica; Manuel Zoia gallery, Verona (IT) September 2021 – (La) Natura (è) morta - 80 edition Cramum prize, curated by Sabino Maria Frassà; Villa Mirabello, Milano (IT) January 2021 – WOP Art Fair; Raffaella De Chirico arte contemporanea, Lugano (CH) December 2020 – RAR: 2015 – 2020; Raffaella De Chirico arte contemporanea, Turin (IT) May 2019 – Here; Cavalerizza Reale, Turin (IT) October 2018 – RAR: mappe letterarie, catalogue presentation; Bookshop Bodoni-Spazio B, Turin (IT) June 2018 – RAR: mappe letterarie, catalogue presentation; Colibrì library, Milan (IT) November 2017 – Paesaggio immaginale; Raffaella De Chirico arte contemporanea, Turin (IT)
selected works
Come Here is a good way to define our attitude toward art: the work of art never stops whispering, stops calling; its presence is eternal. The Catholic religion often speaks of the auricular conception and birth of Jesus Christ: the angel whispers in Mary’s ear the announcement of the Messiah: the verb made flesh, the link between word and object, between cause and effect, the link that underlies truth.
statement In Hebrew, the root aman √ אמן means confidence, firmness, determination, stability, pillar and at the same time art, as well as amen, formula of immediacy – in a second – and conclusion, the same thing that happens with Here, as if a long finger is ready to point. In Proust and also in The Other Side by Kubin, the bell tower is a long finger, the finger of God.
The whisper invokes, and the invoking involves calling and at the same time that what is invoked is the fruit of trust. A trust in something stable and hidden, inexpressible and therefore something that can only be revealed or expressed through art, that is, through this circle of words and shapes that form a halo, quite reverent and strong with this Here.
At the heart of our work is this trust that is linked to the invisible, the hidden, the profound, to that which seems abstract because it is waiting for a name, and which requires an act of trust in order to be seen.
In the past, the figure of the blind man has been used to represent the one who no longer needs to see matter, and therefore eyes, because he is already beyond it; his eyes ignore the material world so that the supernatural and the universal can emerge. The blind man of Derrida or, on the contrary, Proteus, who sees the future in the deep darkness of the water.
The message transmitted from ear to ear creates a dynamic that leads the user to become creator and maker, mixing roles and creating an exchange that guarantees transmission, goes beyond repetition and finds its completion in transformation.
The eternity of an experience, whatever it is (physical, material, emotional, intellectual), is measured by its capacity to be an eternal breeding ground for discovery and knowledge.
How can you recognize something eternal? What are the characteristics that transmit eternity into our world? What makes a work of art art? What makes it independent and different from those who create it?
In a note on Joyce’s Ulysses, Giulio De Angelis writes: “But the secret key of the episode [The Beach] is perhaps to be found in its last part, where the artist’s dream takes shape: to escape the nightmare of history, the flow of time, by creating and contemplating a self-contained, objectively perfect work of art.”
In our work we try to go beyond history, making analogy and abstraction our basic tools, which have their preferred material in books and fabrics. Starting from an element like the texts that focus on evocation, that are a skeleton to which the reader applies his creativity, we can trigger communication, approach and say: come here.
Our goal is to create an image for the invisible or to say how to remember it. The choice of fabric has two reasons: the first and most immediate is that writing and fabric have common terms to explain their nature and functioning, they share the lexicon. The second reason is to be found in the world of symbols, more precisely in the relationship between space and time.
The fabric represents the non-permanent dwellings, the tents of the nomadic peoples who change the place where they live and move little by little. The texts are also characterized by the fact that they are enjoyed in sequence, word by word. The writing and the fabric are made for movement, the work of art is made to move away from those who created it and to lose the moment in which it was created.
Textile art