PAINTING
SILVIA BIGNAMI
 
DETAILS
Oil on canvas
25 x 35 cm
2024
 
DESCRIPTION
This small painting is part of a series I titled MOTZ — a collection of 25 × 35 cm works inspired by the famous portrait of Mozart painted by his brother-in-law Joseph Lange. Each piece in the series reinterprets that image through a different technique, and takes its title from one of Mozart’s compositions. This particular painting is titled Haffner Symphony (No. 35 in D major, K. 385), a symphony first performed in Vienna on March 23, 1783 — a date that seemed especially fitting for this exhibition.
 
BIOGRAPHY OF THE ARTIST
Silvia Bignami (b. Bologna, Italy, 1978) is a painter and former journalist for La Repubblica. Beginning her painting practice in 2022 after a life drawing course at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Bologna, she works primarily in oil, merging classical techniques (grisaille, glazing, chiaroscuro) with disruptive interventions like scratches and sandpaper.
Her figurative works explore transforming identities,fluid, fragmented forms balancing beauty and decay, strength and vulnerability. Informed by journalism, her art resists sanitized realities, unveiling contradictions in gendered and digital selves. Current series: GLITCH, with surreal, gothic distortions.
 
Selected exhibitions: solo Corpi in guardia (Galleria Wikiarte, Bologna, 2025); group shows including Gender Fluidity (2024) and Tratti di umanità (2025); art fairs (Art3f Milano/Paris, Bergamo, 2025). Submissions to awards: Premio Modigliani, Cairo Prize, Almenara Art Prize, BBA Prize (2025).