Ambra Castagnetti at Rolando Anselmi

Artist: Ambra Castagnetti

Exhibition title: APHROS

Venue: Rolando Anselmi, Rome, Italy

Date: October 23 – November 30, 2021

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Rolando Anselmi, Berlin/Rome

Rolando Anselmi is pleased to announce APHROS, Ambra Castagnetti’s first solo exhibition in the new gallery spaces in Rome.

Ambra Castagnetti’s practice develops through painting, sculpture and video and aims to represent everyday life, emotions and the different appearances of reality, reflecting the various relationships that natural, animal and human beings establish with life. The exhibited works share the idea of a continuous movement of matter, which outlines the first and embryonic mutation of bodies and the transformations caused by social practices and everyday spaces.

Aphros, a sea-being which personifies foam, gives the name to the exhibition, where matter is continuously changing, resembling the shapeless flow of waves.

At the centre of the gallery space is Tauromachia, a bull’s head shaped bronze that revisits the ancient burial tradition. Adopting the same process of layering matter on the original form, the artist explores new ways of shaping reality and reiterating memory.

The parietal ceramic composed by five panels, Cheree Cheree, shows snake-like figures winding through space to create a composition in which relief, image and matter blend together, giving rise to a sort of murky underground in continuous flow.

On the other hand, the Serpentine Series contradicts the idea of freedom expressed by matter so far, through the constrictions imposed on ceramic by ropes, chains and belts.

Ambra Castagnetti (b. 1993, Genoa, Italy) lives and works in Milan. Recent exhibitions include: Galerie Rolando Anselmi (Rome, 2021; Atina, 2020), L’Air Arts Association (Paris, 2021), Palazzo Monti (Brescia, 2021; 2020), Manifattura Tabacchi (Florence, 2021), Renata Fabbri Gallery (Milan, 2021), Mana Contemporary (New York, 2020), Villa Necchi (Milan, 2020), Casa Testori (Milan, 2019), Fondazione Adolfo Pini (Milan, 2019), Museo del Novecento (Milan, 2018).