Stili Life| Quiet tales from nothingness – Eva Gerd

Ritual and taboo, beauty and decay: with her latest creation, Eva Gerd unites seemingly distant expressions that find a perfect union in sinuous animal bones covered in precious and finely decorated silk and organza veils. This Danish artist exhibits “STILL LIFE quiet tales from nothingness” in Pietrasanta, at the Barbara Paci Art Gallery, from 28 April to 24 June. This, previously unseen exhibition curated by Enrico Mattei, is composed of fifteen charming pieces specially created for the event.

A ritual – that of female embroiderers who, with their extraordinary deftness, pass on centuries of history and culture from mother to daughter in the domestic sphere. A taboo – that of the immediately obvious decay of bones, echoes of a by now distant existence. These include thigh-bones, skulls, shoulder blades and collarbones, stumbled upon and used by the artist as her chosen vehicle of expression.

This union of bones and embroidery proves to be extremely suggestive, throwing light on both man’s vibrancy and frailty. A metaphor, life and death, splendour and decline, elegance and nudity. Her exploration of intimacy leads Eva Gerd to examine these, the most essential elements of the body, as a processing tool of memory, as a sphere of physical and emotional reflection, re-breathing life into these worn and forgotten traces.

Eva Gerd was born in Denmark on 28 December, 1963. She attended various art courses in Copenaghen at the Glyptoteket Museum, and then the Academy of Fine Art and the Department of Sculpture and Installation. She was awarded three study grants, in 1993, 2007 and 2008, at the Academy of Denmark in Rome. She lived for three years in Mexico City, where exhibited widely, before moving to Italy, where she presently lives and works. Having experimented with numerous traditional sculptural techniques, she nevertheless has chosen drawing and embroidery as her most congenial expressions.