Incroci

Mariella Bettineschi

L’era successiva e altri racconti

April 15th – June 30th 2023

Life is made of crossroads.

In art too, everything intersects: forms, colors, signs, trends, tradition and testing, spaces and cultures. This is why the INCROCI project was created, a form of comparison and exchange, sharing and dialogue between Italian and international artistic and cultural realities. 

The first crossover involved the collaboration of z2o Sara Zanin, which exhibited Mariella Bettineschi‘s solo exhibition, L’era successiva e altri racconti, from the 15th of April to the 30th of June 2023 at  Nashira Gallery.  

A wide range of works created by the artist over a similarly broad chronological span, from the 1980s to 2022, was displayed for the occasion.

Among the works on show were three more recent series: Feathers boxes and Soft, organzas stuffed with bamboo or feathers with words written in cast gold and chenille quilts decorated with patterns made of nylon thread, metal or beads; The next era, a project that uses digital painting.

The exhibition was created as an exploratory journey through Mariella Bettineschi’s ongoing artistic development. Throughout her career, she has consistently demonstrated her skill across a variety of media (painting, sculpture, digital instruments, collage), never diverting from the themes of her own research, which prioritize the feminine universe above all else. 

The shift in the concept of women, passing from an “object” to a protagonist subject endowed with visionary abilities, is evident in The next Era series. 

This series began in 2008, the year that saw the start of the severe economic crisis that is still going strong today, made worse by the pandemic and the onset wars. A consequence of this crisis is the endangering of the sphere of environment and culture, and it is from this that Bettineschi draws the protagonists of her series: natures and libraries whose image has partly faded due to the invasion of mysterious substances (gases, vapors, polluting factors). And women’s faces. Not just any women, but portraits that have become iconic, painted by the great painters who have made history in art (Raphael, Leonardo, Caravaggio). The artist has digitally made some changes to them: in black and white and on a white base, she has doubled their eyes, a symbol of the female ability to look “beyond.”   

Women, now freed from those stereotypes that society has always wanted to attribute to them, can be the first advocates of humanity’s entrance into a “next era,” whose basic requirement is to understand the importance of that subtle but essential balance between culture, environment and humanity itself. 

With experience, research and experimentation, Mariella Bettineschi has thus created a diversified language that is all her own, unique in the artistic panorama, always remaining faithful to the themes that are dearest to her.