Benedetto Pietromarchi’s new series of polychrome ceramic sculptures brings to life an imaginary bestiary, inhabited by hybrid and ambiguous creatures inspired by ancient medieval bestiaries.
The artist draws from the symbolic and fantastical tradition of those collections of real and mythical animals, reinterpreting it through a contemporary lens. Each work takes shape through a process of modeling and coloring ceramic, a material Pietromarchi favors as it allows him to give these figures an intense presence that feels both archaic and modern. These sculptures reflect our present moment, characterized by a widespread return to a surreal, metamorphic, and digital imaginaries. The creatures defy fixed rules; they are fluid forms suspended between the natural and the artificial, the ancient and the futuristic. Much like in the virtual world, reality and fiction merge and blur here as well.
With Bestiario, Pietromarchi invites us to explore a visual and symbolic elsewhere, where the archetypes of the past are transformed to narrate the hybridization of the digital age.
Benedetto Pietromarchi (b. 1972, Rome, Italy) is a master ceramicist deeply engaged with the poetry and psychology of flora and fauna, and the pulse of life that travels from the hand through organic materials. Trained at the Academy of Fine Arts in Carrara, Pietromarchi lived and worked in London for 15 years before establishing a studio in the Maremma countryside, where his bond with nature deepens. Recipient of the Kenneth Armitage Fellowship from 2009 to 2011.
Benedetto Pietromarchi lives and works in Rome