Valentina Bardazzi

Valentina Bardazzi (1974, Prato, Italy) received her education at several art institutions in Florence and Pistoia, Italy. From 2002 onwards, she works as an independent artist and lives and works currently in Berlin. Valentina explores the human body with the idea that what makes people beautiful is what makes them stand out from others; through their anguish and pain, through their mistakes, through their craving for happiness. These experiences have an effect on how
we perceive ourselves, and thus how the outside world perceives us. This is what connects us universally, yet is what also creates our individuality.

Statement

The disease and the body have been often the protagonists of my works. I'm attracted by the rarity of an aesthetic body, so I think the beauty lies in the rarity,the exception of genetic anatomy that manifests a unique aesthetic code. I'm
interested in the body that comes out of the majority, which is known for it's diversity, regardless of how positive or negative it is. Beautiful or ugly adjectives are dictated by the laws of morality and the customs of the time and place; they
are always changing, there is no absolute standard of beauty. The theme of childhood is often recurrent in my works as well. Children who draw, are drawn primarily from medical images or books of childhood diseases. I care about the
image that creates a sensory short circuit... It seems one thing but instead is another. The image that attracts and repels at the same time."
— Valentina Bardazzi