Marialuisa Tadei
“Marialuisa Tadei succeeds in giving the mystery of life abstract form, implying that it transcends the nature in which it ordinarily manifests itself, suggesting that it is unworldly – beyond space and time – like God’s creative wisdom.”
Donald Kuspit, critic and professor of art history,
University of New York at Stony Brook
Biography
Marialuisa Tadei was born in Rimini, Italy. She studied art history at the University of Bologna, and art at the Accademia di Belle Arti, Bologna, in Dusseldorf and at Goldsmiths’ College, London. She began to make sculpture in the early 1990s and has shown widely at galleries and museums in Europe and America. As well as this year, she has exhibited previously during the Venice Art Biennale in 2009 and 2013 and at its Architecture Biennale in 2010, and showed at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. Her work is in the permanent collections of museums in Italy, Holland, Germany and Slovenia, while her public commissions include sculptures for a station in Italy, for the city of Coral Springs, Florida, for a newspaper in India, for the world’s largest cruise ship and for Florida International University, Miami. One of her pieces was recently on display outside the offices of The Times in London and two of her works are currently at the prestigious Yorkshire Sculpture Park, in northern England. She also makes photographs and paintings. Her art is characterised by her bold use of colour and materials, including mosaic, glass, bronze and feathers, and by the lyrical and spiritual qualities of her artistic language, which seeks to make light what is dense and give weight to what is insubstantial.
Artist statement
Inside every one of us there are signs of a universal essence, an imprint on our soul left by the Creator, the Father Almighty. This belief is the foundation of my ideas and of my art, which seeks to make shine this divine spark which exist in everything.
My language leaves the mind free to perceive, beyond materiality, that barely perceptible line that stands between consciousness and unconsciousness. It encourages, inside ourselves, an awareness of that vital and universal spirituality, and leaves the mind free to find its sense of immortality and to discover again what is sacred in life. I hope my work can take the viewer out of himself, and place him in that sublime state called ecstasy.
When I was seven years old I wanted to invent a machine that would make dreams visible, because I believed that we were at our most creative during the night; perhaps it because we are most relaxed then, and when our mind is less attentive the subconscious can flow more freely. For are we not too formed from such stuff as dreams are made of?
I feel like an angel who has fallen to Earth. The things I create are works of art that belong to another dimension, reminiscent of another spirituality. I would like my sculptures to speak the language of the soul, that they will have followed that true path from their heart that is purity, love and interior tranquillity. These are the paths that open new doors to the heart and help spiritual growth. I would like to speak the language of God. I would like to brush against the profundity of his soul, to rest among the fallen perfumed white flowers. To feel this spiritual dimension is to feel ecstasy.
The beating of the heart is like love, an opening towards the infinite, towards mystery and internal freedom which is one of the most precious things a man can possess, acting to beautify his inner self. Beauty is not only external, but above all internal. Even suffering can add much to life. It can help us to understand many things, even if sometimes they are very hard to accept. Sometimes suffering has given birth to illumination, and of the pain there remains only a vague feeling. From birth onwards this understanding has its own wealth and vitality, as if bathed in a mystical light. I feel this when I am most alive. Long live Art that transmits something living through its observation. Long live Art that gives us spiritual strength.
