Women on the Edge of Time

Caroline Bergonzi

The Eye of the Storm

2021_40″(H)x40″(W)each_Total 80″(H)x80″(W)

When informed of the theme of this new exhibition, Woman on the Edge of Time, and explored a bit what this novel by Marge Piercy was about, I found an echo to my most personal line of work, which involves androgynous, sometimes gender-neutral silhouettes, beings of energy, who shine of an inner glow. The novel takes place in a New York mental hospital, and entrapment has been a main theme, as well as the complex relationship feminine versus masculine spirits.

I did paint these beings of light, these entrapped wild women, during the first decade I lived in New York. Then I changed studio, for a much larger space, shared, and took on sculpture, developing fragile yet dangerous phoenix looking works, some monumental in public locations.
The pandemic brought me back to my family town, faced with the void I had forgotten, escaped. 10 months isolated, away from Manhattan, my studio and community. I picked up paint and brushed and what came out was perfectly aligned with where I had left it, a decade earlier.
I spontaneously created a new polyptic of four entrapped silhouettes, variations of a blue (cold shell) female, with an almost unreachable glowing pink inner brightness.

Too big, too powerful, always unpredictable, the feminine nature is facing the same question over and over. When and how will the wilderness be freed, integrated and allowed to heal this world.

Caroline Bergonzi.

Video Short by Caroline Bergonzi

NYSWA: Caroline Bergonzi