Ilaria Abbiento
in Percé
EXHIBITION
Notebook of an island (Quaderno di un’isola)
Ilaria Abbiento, Naples, Italy | ilariaabbiento.com
Notebook of an island, 2019
I went to trace the contours of an island,
and instead I discovered the boundaries (the banks) of the ocean.
Ludwig Wittgenstein
—
Naples, June 18, 2019
“Today, onboard a ship, I’m leaving the coast to reach an island.
According to my itinerary, every day I’ll be crossing the sea; in my pocket, an aquamarine stone and a notebook, its cover a celestial color, where I’ll write my thoughts and my perceptions. I’ll keep my aquatic adventure story steeped in molecules, blues, suspended between sky and sea, of uncertain coordinates and changing constellations. I’ll listen to the sound of the ocean, I’ll become a fragment of the ‘grammar’ of the coast and I’ll be dazzled by the light of a summer solstice capable of eclipsing the shade of a few scars.
There, where the land gets lost in the sea, I’ll be an island in an island.
“I carried out this project during an artist residency on the island of Asinara, in Sardinia.
My task consisted in preparing a visual inventory of the island.
It was only at the end of my journey, when looking at the photographs I’d collected and the notes I’d written down, that I realized that the island I was contemplating was only myself.” – Ilaria Abbiento
EXHIBITION AT RENCONTRES
Notebook of an island (Quaderno di un’isola)
Ilaria Abbiento is a Neapolitan artist. Her research, focused on the theme of the sea, starts from a deep introspective immersion to build a poetic narrative investigating her inner ocean. The artist, who expresses herself essentially through photography, elaborates her works using material elements in relation to the images, sometimes with poetic and literary texts; studies site-specific installations; and also works with video. In the sea she gets lost continuously to find herself. Her works have been exhibited in many prestigious art galleries and museums both in Italy and abroad, such as the Pino Pascali Foundation in Polignano a Mare, the PAC-Pavilion of Contemporary Art in Milan, the Quadrilatère in Beauvais, France, the Art Pur Gallery in Riyadh and Hafez Gallery in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, the Institut Culturel Italien in Paris, the Macro Museum in Rome, and the Madre Museum and Villa Pignatelli Museum in Naples. Some works can be found in public and private art collections. She has participated in various artist residencies and has exhibited in international photography festivals, including the Photolux Festival in Lucca and the Photaumnales in France. She has won several awards and had many honors in contemporary art.