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BIO Stefania Balestri
Stefania Balestri
Born in Florence where she lives and works.
"I began to use photography as a means of expression upon observing one of my installations, called “The House of Pacifiers.” I had given it to Maria for her critical essay called “at the studio.” I was particularly fond of that installation. It was like a story that recounted the contents in its plexiglass box. You could see a baby doll sitting on a carpet of soft pink cloth covered with pacifiers. In the background a house appeared with a slate roof and windows with little panes of framed glass. Suspended over the house was a photograph of the family having to leave it. It was painful for me to be separated from that work so I began to photograph it, in its smallest details. The photograph focused on and brought out details that, as a whole, I had not previously understood. At that point the work had turned into something else even if connected to the original idea, but had become more detached and objective."
"So I went on working like that for several years, photographing the details of my installations, until circumstances of my life led me far from my studio, which I had set up in my home at that time. Far away from the studio, from the installations, from the world of small objects, I turned my attention to the real world. Away from the austere, claustrophobic boxes. From the doll houses, metaphors for real houses, I transferred my interests onto the rooms of real life. These days I am exploring real rooms that speak of daily life but also of absence. The absence of a human presence in those spaces is suggested but not entirely denied. A room with its objects always says something about the person living in it. Moreover, these spaces are animated by presences-absences, achieved through a shifting of planes and light. You can feel a suspension, a sort of floating sensation that lends the image almost the quality of an apparition. Domestic spaces that acquire other qualities are transformed by a simple click."
- Stefania Balestri
Recent solo exibitions (selection):
- 2006 In quiete, Galleria Luxardo, Roma
- 2005 Qualcosa di familiare?, Galleria Dryphoto, Prato
- 2002 Lilliput, interno&dumdum Bologna
- La casa delle fate, La Corte Arte Contemporanea, Firenze
Recent group exibitions (selection):
- 2006 De Sotho esplora te stesso, Centro D'A, Empoli
- Bad Girls, Officina Firenze
- 2004 Interni, Torre del Lago Puccini, Lucca
- Un cuscino per sognare, Milano, Reggio Emilia, Monaco (Germania)