Roberta Barlati

born in 1959

Italy

http://www.robertabarlati.com/

date of insertion in W.A.D. 12/2022

Biography

To me, ceramics has been a job as well as a passion since 1983 when, after high school, I completed the INIASA ceramics course in Ravenna. During the two-year period I started working as a decorator in the Sartoni Artistic Ceramics Studio in my city, paid on a piecework basis.

As soon as I finished the course, I bought my first electric kiln from a retired drawing teacher who passed me on, with the kiln, also her customers such as the current Book Shops of churches and monuments. I painted souvenirs with details of the Byzantine mosaics in Ravenna and the Pomposa Abbey, tile by tile, with brush strokes.

Later, I developed a particular polychrome vine branch inspired by the traditional Romagna canvas print that I used to paint on majolica tableware. I worked for shops, for private commissions, institutions and I used to do fairs and markets.

I moved my studio from the city to the Ravenna countryside, adjacent to the Po Delta Park. After having my son in 1993, my partner abroad for half of the year, I stopped doing fairs and markets and concentrated on private commissions and shops, working more and more on landscape panels, bas-reliefs depicting flora and fauna of the Delta and abstract panels with carvings and reliefs inspired by nature: the “A …mareggiate” and the “Dunes”, building myself wooden supports covered with fabric for the panels.

Curiosity for the use of other materials than ceramics led me to experiment with glass fusion, mosaic and papier-mâché.

In 2003 we moved back to City, and I opened the “Arteceramica” shop in the historic center of Ravenna.

The economic crisis of 2008 led me to close shop with great pain and to take up painting in oil, acrylic and watercolours. I enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts in Ravenna and attended classes in painting, art history, mosaic and photography.

In 2013 I moved with my family to Dubai where I taught decoration at the Yadawey Ceramic Studio and at the Dubai International Art Centre, experimenting with different techniques and clays and I started practicing paperclay.

Here were born the Ladies Series “The big Heart of Women”, female sculptures that speak of the big heart of women, our ability to give that sometimes backfires.

In Dubai I found it necessary to address a topic that is very close to my heart, that of gender inequality, symbolized in my “electrified” copper-haired Ladies, talking about it with women and men from all over the world.

The Alserkal Cultural Foundation of Dubai reserved a permanent exhibition space for me in one of its galleries in Bastakia.

In 2018, when I returned to Italy, in search of symbolic and material lightness, I continued to work with self-produced porcelain paperclay. I started building three-dimensional paper models for Ladies and vases and building cardboard casting moulds. Experimental technique, developed and defined by me as the “Lightness Technique”, with which I create sculptures and vases in ceramic paperclay.

Curriculum

2022

Solo exhibition “Lievi Asimmetrie” in collaboration with AIL Association against leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma, Ravenna.

Reporting by the jury of the “Delight” vase at the III Matres International Festival of Ceramics for Women, Cava dei Tirreni, Vietri sul Mare.

5 of my sculptures are included in the home page of Arte Laguna World as the best of the month.

2021

Finalist at the Grottaglie Award-XXVIII Contemporary ceramics competition Grottaglie, Episcopio Castle-Italy.

-Matres Week Earth- Faenza- Croatia. Italy-Europe-with Associazione Pandora, BuongiornoCeramica, ECF, AICC, AEuCC.

2020-2021

Power of Art– Hotel Indigo Dubai Downtown. Everlasting exhibition with the “Lightness” Collection.

2018

54° International Ceramic Sculpture Symposium-Boleslawiec Poland.

Collective exhibition “Alice and the Others” – Royal Palace of Caserta, Italy. With Associazione Pandora during Buongiornoceramica 2018.

2017

Art Dubai 2017 Collective exhibition “Sikka Arts Festival” Dubai.

Collective The 9 Hijri Exhibition Dubai Mall -Dubai.

Story in images of the experience of living and working in Dubai. Bar Grinder-Libridine- Women’s House-Ravenna.

2016/2020

Everlasting exhibition of the ceramic sculptures “The big heart of women”-

Alserkal Cultural Foundation. Dubai. UAE.

Created for the Alserkal family the sculpture “Mr. Falconer in Dishdasha”.

2016

Conducted courses in ceramic decoration at Dubai International Art Centre and Yadawei Ceramic Studio & Gallery Dubai.

2012

Mentioning of the work “Women moody Women” Women’s Art Competition 8 March, Castrocaroterme Forlì-Cesena

2009

Solo exhibition  “Lune e  Dune”, ceramic and papier-mâché  reliefs,  paintings and sculptures, Nature Museum, S. Alberto, Ravenna.

2008

The television program Geo&Geo-Rai 3, broadcasts the working phases film of the ceramic relief “A.A.A. Duna”.

2007

Collective exhibition at Limoges- Tulle- Gueret, Francia

2005

Collective “Ceramicamosaico” Ravenna. Publication of the work “Tryng on” in the catalogue “A ceramic and mosaic Exhibition” ed. Electa

Collective Mythos & Design” – Hall of mosaics – Ravenna

Collective “Music in the hands” – Vecchia Pescheria – Cervia – Ravenna

Solo exhibition “A sea of dunes” – Hotel Bellevue Milano Marittima. Ravenna.

1986/2002

Conducted ceramic workshops in elementary and middle Schools and Townships of Ravenna and neighbouring Municipalities.

2000

Created the 100 celebratory majolica plates of the Schola Piscatorum Casa Matha, Ravenna.

1996

“Terr…e”, solo exhibition, Transatlantic area, Train Station – Bologna-Italy

1993

4th collective exhibition of figurative arts – Museo del Senio – Alfonsine (Ra)

1991

Published in the magazine “La Ceramica Moderna e Antica” an article concerning the experience of the laboratory and historical research on the traditional “vine leaf” decoration.

1989

3rd figurative arts exhibition “The woman, the nature, the moment” – Museo del Senio- Alfonsine (Ra)

1985

Group exhibition in Ulm (Germany) “Young artists of Ravenna in Ulm”.