15.05 – 7.06.2014
SILVIA ARGIOLAS – Walk on the Wild Side
Curated by Roberto Fantoni
Come on, take a walk on the wild side.
With this naughty invitation Silvia Argiolas, in her new exhibition at Antonio Colombo’s Little Circus, the space of the gallery dedicated to special projects, leads us to explore our concealed and obscure side, that prohibited zone hidden in each of us that safeguards our archaic soul, animal and instinctive, that civility and social conventions dictate us to control and to repress, but that always manages to resurface in different ways.
A nocturnal, dreamlike journey towards the depths of our subconscious, looking for that part of us that we are afraid to know and to unveil, because that would mean questioning our certainties and releasing fears, fantasies, unadmitted and unmentionable desires.
On show, the emblematic portraits/masks, because in reality we don’t show our authentic face, but the mask, or, even better, the interchangeable masks of ourselves; in this manner, without showing our real identity, our true soul, we pretend, as if we were in a play, to be what we are not, to be whatever we would like to be.
The title of the big installation of works on paper is “The Conversion Of Evil”, a sort of “ouvre au noir” wherein takes place the process, unconsciously saturated with religious zeal, that turns chaotic events, negative and sometimes even violent, into a new positive reality through an inner discipline made of action and meditation.
Ending of the show is the big painting on canvas, “Resurrezione”: “hope sprang eternal like the poison mushroom”.
Being in the presence of Silvia Argiolas’ art is like being subjected to a clinical experience, like laying down on the therapist’s bed, like gazing at the stars reflected on the water of a swamp.
Her original work is a cross of inspirations drawing from folk and from punk rather than from Art, wherein primitive elements related to earth, to nature, to the animal and the vegetable world are sharply and hypnotically represented, producing a rebel and provocative result.
Her grotesque universe states dissatisfaction in living, anger, bewilderment and loneliness.
The artist doesn’t try to wheedle neither the work of art nor the observer by displaying false feelings, on the contrary she proposes a work from whom an aggressive and incorrigible anti-sentimentalism shows through.
It’s a kind of painting that doesn’t caress the hearts, it opens them.
Very often, in art, what a generation finds raw and miserable is considered beautiful, authentic and prophetic by the next ones.
For Silvia, the world is divided in two categories: exterminators (the winners) and exterminated (the losers); all who love belong to the second category.
If you weren’t aware, her characters (her projections) only want to be loved.
Silvia Argiolas was born in 1977 in Cagliari. She lives and works in Milano.
Among her solo shows: 2013, Una pace perfetta, Maco Arte, Padova, curated by Nicola Galvan, Il giorno finisce presto, Catania Art Gallery, Catania, curated by Ivan Quaroni. 2012, Silvia Argiolas Solo Show, Robert Kananaj Gallery, Toronto, curated by Robert Kananaj, You are not really so bad, D406 galleria d’arte Contemporanea, Modena, Season of the witch, Antonio Colombo Arte Contemporanea, Milano, curated by R. Fantoni, Rainbow Wrong, Fondazione Durini, Milano, curated by S. Fabbri, I and I, Antonio Colombo Arte Contemporanea (Little Circus), Milano, curated by M.C. Valacchi. 2009, Magica Arborea, Galleria Tubegallery, Milano, curated by I. Quaroni. 2007, Lullaby, Galleria Capsula, Roma, curated by S. Elena and E. Olmetto. 2006, Seed, Galleria Studio 20, Cagliari, curated by R. Vanali.
Among her group shows: 2014, U Liotru, la leggenda di Eliodoro, Catania art Gallery, curated by Arnaldo Romani Brizzi. 2013, The Dark Knigh, Piancoteca Carlo Contini, Oristano, curated by I. S. Fenu, ITALIAN NEWBROW here we go, again, Studi aperti in Filanda Motta, TV. 2012, Altrove Luogo o poesia, Catania Art Gallery, Catania, curated by B. Buscaroli, Something Else, Antonio Colombo Arte Contemporanea, Milano, curated by R. Fantoni, Premio Terna04, Sezione Gigawatt, Roma, L’isola dei morti, Exma, Cagliari, curated by R. Vanali, Big Bang, Galleria Lem, Sassari, curated by D. MarianiIl giorno del Giudizio, Exma, Cagliari, curated by R. Vanali, Biennale Italia/Cina, Villa Reale, Monza, curated by S. Orlandi, I. Quaroni, The shape of painting to come, Galleria Lem, SassariRacconti selvatici/ Galleria delle Battaglie, Brescia curated by A. Lacarpia, Italian Newbrow, Pinacoteca Civica Palazzo Volpi, Como, curated by I.Quaroni, ITALIAN NEWBROW, Cattive compagnie, Fortino Napoleonico, Forte dei Marmi (LU), curated by I.Quaroni. 2011, Mito del Vero: Situation Palazzo Guidobuono, Milano. curated by G.M.Prati and P.Lesino, Centocinquanta. la giovane arte contemporanea italiana , Lizzano – Sale Municipio Lizzano, curated by Daniela Cotimbo; 54 Esposizione della Biennale di Venezia, Sardegna, Museo Masedu (Sassari) curated by Vittorio Sgarbi e Antonio Bisaccia. 2010 Christmas Rodeo, Antonio Colombo Arte Contemporanea, Milano, curated by A. Colombo; Forward_Rewind, Antonio Colombo Arte Contemporanea, Milano; 2009 Biennale giovani Monza 09, Serrone della Villa Reale. (Monza), curated by I. Quaroni; Overture, Galleria San Salvatore, Modena, curated by I. Quaroni. 2008 Whaleless, Strychnin Gallery, Londra, curated by G. Cervi e Res-Pira; Allarmi 2008, Caserma De Cristoforis, Como, curated by I. Quaroni, A. Zanchetta e A. Trabucco. 2007 Creepy, Galleria K-Gallery (MI), curated by I. Quaroni; Fiabe crudeli, Museo Man, Nuoro, curated by R. Vanali. 2006 Finalist Premio Celeste. 2005 Man Ray 1995-2005, Centro Culturale Man Ray, Cagliari, curated by M. Cosseddu.
