ASTRAVAGARI: paintings rambling in an imaginative zodiac of constellations

About

The show starts as a playful digression on astronomy: constellations transformed into familiar toys sitting on cardboard carts that come and go across abstract colour fields. But this compositional simplicity, the delicate humour, even the exhilaration in the gesture of painting and the ensuing wonder at the resulting broad, fluid brushmarks can hardly conceal the painful dialogue between desire and frustration, the search for an interlocutor that will activate the self.  

So what started as a homely, private zodiac takes on a universal appeal. There are large pastel-coloured canvases as well as smaller diptychs, paired dominoes whose relationship remains unresolved despite the linking threads. If these connections are emphasised, in fact, they also exist to set distances -as in the myth of the bull in fierce pursuit of a forever elusive banderilla, or the melancholy tale of a rooster and hen facing each other across the net of an empty tennis court. 

Among other themes explored by Gavazzi in her digressions are travel and the fetishistic value of fashion. In a series of small canvases bold fashion statements are turned into dangling amulets with an extra-dimension provided by photographic collage inserts. As Gavazzi works her way through free mental associations, shuffling and shifting meanings and undoing conventional words through images of the apparently ordinary, the objects represented come to life, engaging the viewer in an irresistible tête-à-tête.

Maria Teresa Gavazzi was born in Milan in 1950. She spent her childhood in Saõ Paulo, lived in Italy for many years and currently lives in London. She has an MA degree in Painting from the Brera Fine Arts Academy in Milan and in 2018 she graduated in Social Anthropology (MA Migration and Diaspora Studies) at SOAS, the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. In 2019 she walked from Rome to London and has published a book of her encounters on the via Francigena.

Over the years, she has embraced painting, collage, photography, installations, videos, performances and interactive projects. Gavazzi’s work has been exhibited in Europe, Great Britain and Japan. It has been displayed, among others, at Herrick Gallery, Red Gallery, and Viktor Wynd Fine Art in London, Galleria Il Milione in Milan, at the International Biennial of Photography in Turin, the Magazzini del Sale in Venice, the Nederland Fotomuseum in Rotterdam, the Osaka Triennale, the Book Photography Festival at the Benaki Museum Pireos Annexe, Athens.

A percentage of the sales will be donated to a research project lead by Fondazione Ricerca Fibrosi Cistica-Onlus, to identify a cure to save lives of people affected by cystic fibrosis.