FLAMINIA VERONESI

The work in competition, Draga, Monstrous Feminine, embodies one of the conceptual and iconographic fulcrums of the multifaceted artistic practice of Flaminia Veronesi (Milan, 1986): the feminine, here declined in sculptural form and in a “monstrous” guise, to gather all the supporting meanings of her reflection on the theme. The structure of the work is an armature of plastic pipes, shaped with a hot-air gun and assembled by hand; the volumes, made from scraps of packaging material, are covered with a polymeric plasticine, superimposed on the plastic core after the addition of acrylic color. Unlike traditional sculptural materials, the chosen medium lends itself to immediate processing, to almost instantaneously translate vision into object. What results is a creature that carries with it a powerful imaginative charge (a typical feature of Veronesi's language) and at the same time is not afraid to participate in the world. Anatomically imaginative, it has an uncertain posture but an assertive presence, the allure of a late medieval miniature and the colors of a pop poster. Frightening, but also graceful and elegant, because she is not afraid to put it all out there, uncensored, starting with a body that is a “map of the soul,” with its lights and shadows, idylls and labors. “One must give oneself the freedom to be even monstrous,” is Draga's suggestion in the voice of the artist, ”and understand that beauty is all here: in being exactly what one is.”