Golden rose empowerment, 2022

Patrizia Casagranda  

Sculptural dot painting, mortar-gypsum mixture with color pigments, 15 layers on recycled truck tarpaulin.

Women, and their empowerment, are a constantly recurring element in the works of Patrizia Casagranda, whether as a movie star, princess, mythological figure, rubbish collector from India or a member of a particular faith. "I think women are great," the Krefeld, Germany artist and mother of three daughters states. The juxtaposition of these portraits create a tension that is both evocative and aesthetic.
Patrizia travelled to India, where she met the rubbish girls from the Indian snake caste, the Kabelia, who gave her their rubbish finds, which she in turn used, literally, as the basis of her works. The idea of her art was born, the recycled materials "from the street", such as truck tarpaulins, pieces of jute, fabric, paper or cardboard, are overlaid with "15 to 20, sometimes more" layers of painting, consisting of a mortar-gypsum mixture enriched with pigments.
Patrizia also wants the viewer to contemplate what the word type fragments are on her paintings; these can be a poem or even Charlie Chaplin's speech from the film The Great Dictator.

At first sight, these works appear very illustrative and aesthetic. However, the deceptive use of materials unveils a continuous array of new levels and perspectives; the fragility of the seemingly crumbling layers of paint, the lace and fibres that have been incorporated, as well as the relief-like impasto brushstrokes merge into a symbiosis of ancient murals from a long past epoch with that of contemporary modern art.
Her compositions have a fascinating depth effect. When they are observed from close up, the effect can be compared to the works of the Pointillists: the motif looks like an abstract painting consisting of grid points, whose pictorial content is only revealed at a distance.
Patrizia has won two prizes at the Florence Biennale and has been nominated for the German Art Prize among other major awards. Her work is part of major collections in Europe, USA and Australia.