Nadia Galbiati

Nadia Galbiati, born in Milan in 1975, where she lives and works. “The analysis of space as the material and form of sculpture, the study of architectural forms and the relationship they establish with the space around them is the theme on which I focus my artistic research. My entire body of sculpture, from my earliest sculptures to the sheet metal installations, is based on the study of the angle. In sculpture as a representation of the dialogue between space and material, the first form that makes this relationship explicit in my experimentation is the angle: the first element and sign that represents Space as the material of the third dimension; structure and place, from which the material of the Void may become manifest. The process of analysis is focused on the relationship between the form of the architectural work and the place, from the material of form to the material of void. The positive and the negative of the same form. The relationship with built elements is something I feel deeply inside, it is part of my landscape, my experience of places, my experience within the urban context. I begin to elaborate this analysis by appropriating and reinterpreting the territories and macro-structures of buildings which I capture in a comprehensive personal series of photographs. They are studied and mapped to generate the three-dimensional forms and engraved signs. My analysis concentrates primarily on the Rationalist architecture of the 1930s, advancing to the most recent architectural experiences in which Rationalist thought remains manifest, in the minimal forms and the stress on technical construction details, in the relationship between solid space and void space. My experimentation sometimes focuses on specific buildings of which I elaborate not only the aesthetic characteristics, tracing them in a new graphic synthesis and etching them in acid on the metal plate, but also, at the conceptual level, the architectural volumes, going on to produce new sculptural bodies, sculptures that become environments and installations, expanding their relationship to the exhibition space. By analyzing the rationale behind the form in contrast to the void that surrounds it, I stratify several levels of elaboration of the relationship between material and space. My works seek to create new places that can foster a perceptive, physical and conceptual experience of the relationship between solid and void, and attempt to generate an awareness of this relationship, to lay the groundwork for perceiving it. This is something we unconsciously experience every minute of the day as we continuously relate to the urban space, to built space. The sculpture thus intends to produce a space for thinking. In the installation, the photographs, the metal structures, the metal sheets designed by subtraction of material, seek to create a place of experience and relation. The black and white printing on the engraved sheets of metal, the shaped embossing dies, the graphite frottage on the signs etched into the metal and the performances documented in the photos, are traces of these processes of appropriation. The cross-fertilization of techniques allows me to interpret the theme of Space from a broader perspective. I try in my works to produce an aesthetic and ethical experience, profferring a question to resolve, a sensation to analyze. I use sculpture to produce a place for thought.” Nadia Galbiati