Bea Bonafini

Cosmic Scorpion

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Year 2020
Medium Watercolour pencil and Caran D'Ache pencil on paper
Dimensions 29.5 x 20.8 cm
Nominated by George Bray
Top pick Tunji Adeniyi-Jones, artist

About the work

Twin scorpions rotate around each other in an endless cyclical movement. The scorpion’s deathly sting also attests to an endless renewal, a poison that is self-destroying and self-healing. As one of the most ancient emblems, the scorpion becomes Selket, the Egyptian goddess, She who gives us breath and has the gift of immortality, acting as the entrance to the underworld.

About the artist:

Born 1990 Bonn, Bea Bonafini lives and works in Rome. Graduated from BA Fine Art, Slade School of Fine Art (2014),; and MA Painting, Royal College of Art (2016).

Bonafini’s interdisciplinary practice draws from oneiric visions, overlapping personal and ancient mythologies. Her tactile, intimate worlds centre around sensuality, vulnerability and fantasy, forming swirling scenarios that are fragmented and multi-layered. Figures are evanescent and transcendental, referencing spiritual imagery where fluid bodies collide, disperse, swim, fly and fall. Bonafini’s work expands the possibilities of painting, tapestry and sculpture and their interrelationships. Holistic perspectives are developed in close dialogue with architecture, where space is approached as an extension to the work to envelop the viewer. Acting as protected spheres, Bonafini’s installations are openings to encounters between the earthly and the otherworldly.

Selected exhibitions include Twin Waves, Operativa, Rome (2020); Waves Between Us, Fondazione Sandretto, Guarene (2020); In Stitches, Larsen Warner, Stockholm (2020); March Mostra, British School at Rome (2020); Talk to the Hand, Bosse & Baum, London (2019); Chimère, Chloe Salgado, Paris (2019); Premio Cairo, Palazzo Reale Milan (2019); Adieu to Old England the Kids Are Alright, Choi and Lager, Cologne (2020); Ogni Pensiero Vola, Renata Fabbri, Milan (2018); Shed Shreds, Lychee One, London (2018); Memories Arrested in Space, The Italian Cultural Institute, London (2018); and Dovetail’s Nest, Zabludowicz Collection, London (2017).

Residencies include The British School at Rome (2019-21); Palazzo Monti (2021); Fibra Residency, Mexico (2019); Platform Southwark Studio Residency, London (2018); Fibra Residency, Colombia (2018); Fieldworks Studio Residency, London (2017); Villa Lena, Tuscany (2016); and The Beekeepers Residency, Portugal (2015).

← Juliette Blightman

14 December 2020, 8:59 am

Derek Boshier →

K-Pop Korean Pop King of Mask Singer – The Horse + Two Dogs

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