Cristina Fiorenza: Selected works, 2022-2024
I worked for several years as an architect and, in parallel, as an artist. My formal research has developed on this dualism. I work mainly with different media, installation, painting, drawing on ceramics. In recent years, ceramics has become a very important medium in my development.
Everything revolves around the key words ‘ephemeral’ and ‘human’. The spontaneous architecture that forms on the outskirts of cities, the formation of shantytowns in contrast to the ideal landscape of the ‘escape to paradise’.
My ceramic artifacts evoke the shape of vases, but in reality, they are containers that, like dwellings, guard and protect. The glazes that cover them blend into a dense mass inseparable from the object itself, conveying a sense of emotion, memory, compassion and solemnity.
The shapes of the sculptures emerge relatively spontaneously but follow a clear design concept. They are often compositions of multiple parts, and, as happens in sculpture, the object takes shape as it develops, changing from the initial sketch. Besides free-standing sculptures, over the years I have also developed the idea of a vertical ceramic garden made of communicating vases that form a connected system. This allows me to play with plants and glazes, merging everything into a large wall sculpture where organic matter interacts with inorganic matter. I strongly believe that ceramics should be a medium to bring together artisanal tradition, artistic creativity, technical research, and human themes.
The ceramic sculptures I create represent themes such as dissolution and decay, aspects that are part of everyone’s life. In a sense, I instinctively try to trace a path that goes from the romantic idealization of working with ceramics to the desire to return to the origins. The result is an artifact that marks a moment in a broader exploration. My works are precarious, yet at the same time, they have a brutalist character and are strongly material.
Every cloud has a silver lining, 2023-2024
Organic machine, 2022-2024
Flying plants, 2022-2023
Captions
- Atolls, 2024, stoneware, glaze,
Atoll 1, 2024, stoneware, glazes, 55×45 cm
Turkis and blue flowers, 2024, stoneware, glaze, 120 x 40 cm
White palms blue palms, 2024, stoneware, porcelain engobe, painted and glazed, 55×65 cm
Blue palms white palms, 2024, stoneware, porcelain engobe, glaze, 110×55 cm
Buoy Costa Vicentina, 2024, mixed stoneware, mixed glazes, 62×38 cm
Maggie Simpson after the university, 2023, stoneware, glaze, 50×40 cm
Two feather loose in the beak of two twin birds, 2023, stoneware, glaze, 40×36 cm
Whitewhitewhite, 2024, stoneware, crackle glaze, 45×35 cm - Looking for the right key, 2022, stoneware, crater glaze, 70x30x30 cm
Don’t forget the flowers, 2022, stoneware, effect glazes, 60x30x25 cm
Three cups, three tubes, earrings and a palm of course, 2024, stoneware, glaze, 74×30 cm
Eyelashes, fins, and palms, 2024, stoneware, glaze, 115×25 cm
Roofs of Paris, 2023, stoneware, glaze, 100x50x40 cm. Keramion Stiftung, Germany
Despacha, 2022, stoneware with several glazes, 38×36 cm
Flyes group, 2022, stoneware, glaze
CabanaMad, Lisboa, group of works, 2022
Fly vessel big, 2022, stoneware, glaze, 58×25 cm
Group of vessels, 2023, stoneware, glaze
Blue flowers blue, 2023, stoneware, porcelain, LED, 80x60x50 cm
Flowers and aliens, 2023, stoneware, glaze, 90x49x50 cm
Totem, 2022, stoneware, glaze, 180 x 40 cm, 4 parts - Bouquet in France, 2023, stoneware, painted and glaze, 140×40 cm
Bouquet, 2022, stoneware, painted and glaze, 140x 40 cm
Cactus lipari, 2023, stoneware, glaze, 120×35 cm
Cactus stromboli, 2023, stoneware, glaze, 120×35 cm
Group of works, 2023, flying plants. Bregenz, Austria
Fioo growing wall, 2023, stoneware, glaze
