VIRGINIA RUSSOLO

ARTIST STATEMENT & BIO

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Virginia Russolo (Oderzo, 1995) lives on the island of Crete, Greece. Russolo investigates how communication with the sacred is mediated through materials. Beeswax, animal fats, silk, propolis, amber, animal horns, bones and fur are recurring materials in her paintings and sculptures. Russolo seeks, what anthropologist Tim Ingold calls, a ‘correspondence’ with materials, treating them as forms of intelligence to partner with over a long period of time.

Mysticism, myth and an archeological longing underpin Russolo’s work. She grew up in Italy, the USA, Japan, the UK and the Netherlands. In 2017 she received a BFA from The Ruskin School of Art, University of Oxford. Her work has been exhibited at Basel Liste 2023 (Basel), CLC gallery (Beijing), Shahin Zarinbal (Berlin), Westbund Art Fair (Shanghai), Mediterranea 19 Young Artist Biennale (San Marino), T293 Gallery (Rome), Rupert (Vilnius), Podium Gallery (Oslo), The Address Gallery (Brescia), Galleria Nicola Pedana (Caserta), Fondazione Spinola Banna (Turin), Procida Capital of Culture (Procida), 7th Thessaloniki Biennale (Thessaloniki), Modern Art Oxford (Oxford), Tate Modern (London), Pitt Rivers Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Oxford) amongst others. Russolo was selected for Fondazione Spinola Banna artist residency in partnership with GAM in Turin (2019) and for the Alternative Education Programme at Rupert in Vilnius (2021). In 2023 Russolo was a Visiting Art Scholar at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in Shanghai.

Structure Bone Bread Ibis Cat II, 2020, beeswax, plant oils, resin extract, nautical sail, graphite,

charcoal on cotton, 256 x 170 cm Courtesy the artist

Sacrificial altars seemingly confine artefacts to a hierarchy. This hierarchy is subverted when the

artefacts change material state: they liquify and burn. Images of Egyptian animal mummies are

held in pockets of cotton treated with beeswax. Altar-like structures elevate the artefacts whilst

the liquid they expel connects them back to a formless dimension: flesh, fur, or perhaps the

materials discarded during the process of mummification.