Artist Benedetta Segala’s artwork geometric distortion paintings
BENEDETTA SEGALA (Italy 1978) is an Italian artist, writer and art curator who currently lives in Malaysia and is well known for her geometric distortions and original interpretations in painting, in an intimate relationship between aesthetics and nature. These techniques originate from constant research into light and colour, of which the ultimate goal is to reach visual thinking.
Shapes are treated as if they were geometries; the closer you get to the truth the more the geometric structure of things become readable. The abstraction of geometry that can replicate itself infinitely and the concreteness of truth converge, culminating in a pictorial and visual meditation.
What is painting, if not the construction of a world on a two-dimensional surface, the construction of a sort of parallelepiped of air, as the art historian Berenson called it, in which an action takes place? A fictitious illusory world, becomes all the more credible and realistic when the painter builds that universe with the ability to assess light. Light is what shows us the world in real life, a world that would otherwise appear dark or not at all. Space and time are relative to one and only absolute, and this is the light.
This play of projective geometries, of extroflexions imagined as blades of light that flow along the walls, as if they were damp matter that rests on the things they reveal, does not paint any space in particular. Instead, they remain very real in the smallest details. It is a timeless nowhere, making chromatic matter the absolute protagonist, because what is silent stimulates the other to speak.
Visual fields open to create depth by alternating areas of oil colour rendered through light and transparent glazing or thick impasto. These fields also blur the spatial planes and in this way play with the usual perception of things. Far-near, presence-absence is superimposed in an intrinsic duality between real and unreal. The light reveals the presence of when we will no longer be there, making memory alive but not only, and fixing the moment in its perpetual existence.
So “The Painter” is a painting that reflects directly on the very meaning of painting. Here, Benedetta depicts the old and now ramshackle and worn chair of her painter friend Ali Nurazmal (which has been with him in all his studios over the years), letting its body dissolve and solidify between incorporeal and physical existence; it becomes a pretext that speaks of the solitary moment of creation, of the silence and concentration experienced in imagining and forging the ideas to be transmitted to the canvas. The antechamber of creation, that phase invisible to the spectator’s eyes but which represents the existential fulcrum of every artist’s life, including her own.
Benedetta Temporale Santi Olivieri 2012
Fire and moon – 182×122 cm 2016 – oil on canvas
Not so far – diptyque 182×247 cm. 2016 Oil on canvas
Round Trip Triptych – 73×177 cm. 2016 – oil on canvas
The Painter 180×120 cm. 2019
EDUCATION
2003 Contemporary Art Degree D.N.S.E.P. Master 5 – Luminy Faculty of Fine Arts – Marseille, France
1997 Secondary Degree Diploma – Giulio Romano High School Design – Mantova, Italy
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2018 DIAL&CTIC (Duo)- Tapak Gallery – Shah Alam, Malaysia
2014 Esistere – 1 Stile Gallery – Mantova, Italy
2012 Segala/Ghani (Duo) – Espace Provisoire / Maison Bleu Gallery – Digne, France
Art Exhibition – Italian Cultural Institute & European Congress – Marseille, France
2011 Aquatique – Toursky Theater – Marseille, France
Talents de Femmes – Maison de la Region – Marseille, France
Oeuvres 2005-2011 – City Hall Gallery – Marseille, France
2008 Terre Creatrice – Celadon Gallery – Marseille, France
Grain de sable, Grain de peau – Sahella Gallery – Marseille, France
2006 Mirages – L’Entree des Bains Gallery – Marseille, France
2005 Frammenti – Libenter Gallery – Mantova, Italy
2004 International Art Fair – Milano, Italy
2003 Sculptures – Immagina Gallery – Mantova, Italy
Sculptures – MAC Contemporary Art Museum – Marseille, France
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2020 Project A: Last Man Standing & Craven A (Exhibition by Ali Nurazmal Yusoff) – Balai Seni Negara – KL, Malaysia
2017 Pameran Seni Rupa Lima Benua – Rumah Lebah Imoghiri (Art Jog) – Yogyakarta, In
2016 Shah Alam Biennale Pangea – Alam Impian Art Gallery – Shah Alam, Malaysia
Mantovana (Italian Capital of Culture 2016) – 1 Stile Gallery – Mantova, Italy
Horizon – Guimik Art Gallery – Marseille, France
2015 Abstrak: Kini dan Dulu – Core Design Gallery – Subang Jaya, Malaysia
2014 Soya Cincau – Core Design Gallery – Subang Jaya, Malaysia
Bank Art Fair – Zero Gallery Korea – Pan Pacific Hotel, Singapore
Langkawi Art Biennale – Lagoon Resort – Langkawi, Malaysia
2012 Consul’Art – Palais des Arts – Marseille, France
2009 For Them – CDAA & Cuadro Fine Art Gallery – Dubai, UAE
A Vendre – Montgrand Gallery – Marseille, France
Votre prix sera le Notre – Artcade Gallery – Marseille, France
Art Auction LECLERE – Marseille, France
2008 Semaine de l’Art Contemporain – City Hall – Riez la Romaine, France
2007 Quadriennale L.da Vinci – Vittoriano Museum Complex – Roma, Italy
Regards de Provence – Palais des Arts – Marseille, France
2005 Temporale – Thomas Charles Gallery – Phoenix, USA
ART CURATOR / ART WRITER
2020 Project A: Last Man Standing & Craven A (Exhibition by Ali Nurazmal Yusoff) – Balai Seni Negara – Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
2017 Lines (Exhibition by Anees Maani) – Chandan Gallery – Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
2015 Abstrak: Kini dan Dulu – Core Design Gallery – Subang Jaya, Malaysia
The Grass is Greener on This Side – Core Design Gallery – Subang Jaya, Malaysia
Website: www.segalaart.com
Facebook Art Page: Benedetta Segala ART
Instagram: segalabenedetta
