Main Partner
Franca Maran (1920 2015, Bari) was a key figure on the art scene of Southern Italy throughout the second half of the last century. Her practice took off in the early 1960s with an unconventional investigation into painting which combines formal, non-figurative, organic motifs with the use of additional fragments of canvas superimposed onto the surface. Similar quasi-calligraphic signs form the basis of her ceramic panels, which feature very limited, dark, earthy chromatic palettes often just applying two shades giving life to fluid reliefs with mythologically evocative qualities. In the 1970s, she returned to canvas as a support, in particular the old-fashioned unprimed mix of cotton and linen called medieval canvas . Through the medium of sewing, she would outline scars, insertions, folds, and repetitive rhythmic lines, giving a sense of the support being a living organism onto which an operation is performed. Her series Mental Habits (1975 82) takes this research to the next level by generating paintings designed to be worn as a second skin, reminiscent of H lio Oiticica s Parangol s as well as the works of Huguette Caland and Franz Herhard Walther. From the 1970s, Maran intensified her commitment to feminist values both in her artistic work and as part of the founding group of the Centrosei gallery: an artist-run space which thanks to Maran s drive actively focused on the work of fellow women such as Tomaso Binga, Maria Lai, Elisa Montessori and Renata Boero.
The main themes throughout my oeuvre relate to my status as a mature woman, who runs through the canvas with a strictly female tool, referring back to the past, to its expectations, its disappointments, to content moments and to thoughts that - unfortunately - arise in the mind.
Enjoy a video presentation of the work of Franca Maran (artist) by Aloisia Leopardi (gallerist)