A piece of my biography: a cast, a perfect copy of the portion of land that I always walk through and from which I take some of the materials that I use to paint. The outside ground on the inside ground floor, refined and well-polished.
I’ve made this work for theSyracuse University exhibition A Private Geography.
I tried to obtain a sort of “graft” of my personal biography on the floor of the school that hosted the exibition.
I made the cast of a portion of my vegetable garden, cutting the cast’s boards in the same way as the parquet boards of the school.
Then proceeding with the graft, I placed the clay tiles on the floor.
The portion of the floor is returned to the clay, to loam.
A primordial and a primitive floor.
Ready to be trampled, reduced to dust, ready to get back to its origin.
It’s floor that seems to give us a direct contact with the earth instead of covering it.
The monochrome sober and natural color of clay, which upon a closer inspection reveals any small irregularities, cracks, shells, snails and looks like an archeological document, that tell us something about daily life ordinary, private but universal.
Caterina Sbrana, from the lecture at the Syracuse University in Florence, 2013
- Caterina Sbrana, A private geography, cast of a piece of the artist’s garden, raw clay floor, installazione, Syracuse Universityin Florence, 2013
- A private geography, working process, 2012
- Caterina Sbrana, A private geography, 2012
- Caterina Sbrana, A private geography, the working process, 2012
- Caterina Sbrana, A private geography, installation, Syracuse University, 2013
- Caterina Sbrana, A private geography, raw clay pavement, from a cast from real of a part of the artist vegetable garden, Syracuse University in Florence, 2013
- Caterina Sbrana, A private geography, detail