Maria Bonomi

About

Bonomi is recognised for her prolific production, covering a wide variety of media, including large public art pieces scattered in various cities around the world. Her work also features in both notable private and public collections in Brazil and abroad.

The exhibition will present a series of large format engravings, woodcuts and lithographs, as well as sculptures. Some of these works were displayed at Huelva Museum, Spain, in 2005 and at her latest solo exhibition at Pinacoteca do Estado de Sao Paulo, Brazil, in 2008. The show will also present a selection of previously unseen works.

Bonomi's works are regarded as a milestone in the history of xylography on account of the special treatment given to the matrices, transforming them into highly elaborate sculptural pieces in their own right.

There are three fundamental vectors in Bonomi's route: her respect for the artistic craft, the craftsmanship in the technique of woodcutting and her engagement in the production of large scale public works. She has turned woodcutting into a paradigm and has recovered it via seemingly distant themes: lyical visions of planted fields, horizons, and poetic forms capable of unfolding into multiple meanings and endless cycles. These shapes repeat and multiply themselves in various ways, yet generating new identities each time: 'I always do the same thing, and it is always different.'

Born in 1935 in Meina, Italy, Maria Bonomi holds a PhD in Public Art from the University of Sao Paulo. Her work includes sculpture, engraving and costume and set design. She has been awarded various prizes, amongst which are Best National Engraver, VIII Sao Paulo Biennial, 1965; Theadoron Prize, V Paris Biennial, 1967; International Jury Prize, XV International Engraving Biennial in Ljubljana, 1983; and Santos Prize ' Engraving, Bunge Foundation, 1997.