Italian Artist Annalù Boeretto – A View From Inside the Pandemic

Image:  Arborea, Resinglass, ink, roots, Cm 44x40x86 (h), 2018, Private collection, Photo: Matteo Boem

Annalù Boeretto was born and raised in Venice and still lives in a waterside home in the Italian city. Her work has been gaining popularity in Italy and abroad over recent years. Using a range of materials from glass wool, bark, resin, bitumen and sand, she creates sculptural pieces that are worlds in themselves and that create a sense of wonder and storytelling.

Annalù Boeretto, image courtesy to the artist

Here, Annalù tells us more about her work and her methods, and how she views herself as an artist in the current climate.

ArtDependence (AD): Can you tell us a bit about yourself?

Annalù Boeretto (AB): I am a vision led person and I have always had great difficulty identifying myself within one category: perhaps I consider myself mainly a sculptor but I love and use colour, the design /project and I often go beyond design and performance. My artistic activity began in the Academy years but the first important exhibition I did was the Venice Biennale in 2001 (MARKERS: an Outdoor Banner Event of Artist and Poets for Venice Biennale 2001, young Italian artists in the Biennale). I never relax and I work a lot: my job is lymph, a vital breath, a necessity, a need.

Liquid shell, Resinglass, ink, Cm 130x140x20, 2020, Private collection, Photo: Annalu

Liquid shell, Resinglass, ink, Cm 130x140x20, 2020, Private collection, Photo: Annalu

I believe in language that creates new forms through a strong symbiosis between technique and content. I believe in the work that obscures a standardizing light.

AD: You are multi-talented, you work in many different types of media.  What is your favourite medium, the one that expresses the most of yourself?

AB: In general, I want my work to be an intensely lyrical and evocative. My creations are always metamorphic forms, imaginary architectures created through the assembly and alchemy of synthetic resins, papers and materials removed from Nature such as bark and roots.

I mainly use fiberglass, and for me, the constant challenge has always been to combine such an unemotional material with an expressive language that wants to be full of wonder, freshness and poetry.

I always start with the need to translate content or visions into form. This need leads to the search to find the right strategies, the ways to give voice to the image to be created. The use of resin came from this need.

Arborea, Resinglass, ink, roots, Cm 44x40x86 (h), 2018, Private collection, Photo: Matteo Boem

Arborea, Resinglass, ink, roots, Cm 44x40x86 (h), 2018, Private collection, Photo: Matteo Boem

Many years ago, working on transparency, I looked for the right material to represent it. Despite the difficulty of processing this material, I was conquered by its multiple construction possibilities, which for me corresponded to new possibilities of language.

Thus the work becomes a window on hidden worlds. An evocation.

I observe. I listen. I reflect. Rework. Each material corresponds to a specific message.

The operation that I carry out is not so far from alchemical witchcraft, the transmutation of one matter into another. I tell stories about suspended worlds in metamorphosis and I place myself in that moment of transition between painting and sculpture, in a hybrid terrain that allows me to experiment with different expressive possibilities.

AD: How did you get through this corona period, and do you think it will affect your future work?

AB: This period has put me to the test, especially because it deprived me of the possibility of working in the studio for a long period. At first I worked from home drawing and focusing on projects that I had had in mind for a while. Before this isolation, I had never had the peace of mind to be able to close off the rest of the world in deep reflection with only myself.

Liquid carpet: Saff, Resinglass, ink, roots, Cm 210x230x10, 2019, Private collection, Photo: Matteo Boem

The period of strict closure at home allowed me to look inside my work and myself. This period has already influenced me strongly in my work and I have focused on the visions that I am beginning to translate into my work.

AD: What are your future plans? 

AB: First of all, I want to give shape and consistency to the visions that I have had in this closing period due to Covid19.

Crying light tree, Resinglass, ink, paper, roots Cm 70x70x130, 2019, Private collection, Photo: Matteo Boem

My most important project, which I am now try to dedicate all of my attention to, is to build my personal exhibition which will be held in Paris at the Galerie Bartoux in April 2021. It is a very large exhibition of unpublished works, so hard work awaits me because I am introducing a brand new and very precious material into my work: Murano glass.

Annalù Boeretto, image courtesy to the artist

It is a project that is giving me a lot of satisfaction, even though I had to do many tests and experiments to get to that point. I will therefore work in this direction to make new materials, new alchemies interact within my imaginary architectures.