Mariella Simoni

The singular artistic trajectory of Mariella Simoni (born 1948) revisits the links between conceptual art and abstraction, between poetry and matter. Originally from the Lake Garda region of Italy, the artist studied art history in Parma, as well as philosophy and psychoanalysis. Her early works, from the mid-1970s, immediately assert her interest in organic developments and the movement of living things, using objects in unstable balance, or plants invading exhibition spaces.

Her move into painting in 1982 can be seen as an extension, within the pictorial space, of these questionings. The material keeps the same vividness in her canvases.

The traces of the artist's gestures and the sedimentation of the layers of paint bear witness to the sometimes lengthy time it took to conceive them.

At that time she settled in Vienna, where she formed friendships with several artists who shared her concerns, such as Herbert Brandl and Otto Zitko, close to the Junge Wilde, and Franz West.

She took part in several exhibitions organised at Peter Pakesch's gallery, and was then invited to exhibit at Documenta IX, an international contemporary art event, in Kassel, in 1992.

An artist on the move, Mariella Simoni's work has evolved across the cities where she has stayed: Athens, Paris, Ghent, New York… She occasionally turns to sculpture or installation.

Variations in format, support, dominant colours and contrasts constantly call her practice into question, as her recent productions show, which display greater economy in the use of materials and a different relationship to relief.

The presentation of this group of works, newly acquired from the artist and from Peter Pakesch, bears witness to the intensity of this artistic research.