Carla Tolomeo

Biography

Carla Tolomeo was born in Pinerolo (TO), but she grew up and studied in Rome where she trained as a painter. Encouraged, when she was still a child, by Giorgio de Chirico, and later by Guttuso, Gentilini and Attardi, in 1971 she began to exhibit in Lugano, finding her inspiration mainly in Japanese paiting.

Giovanni Testori would be another illustrious name of culture to present her to the Milan Cavour Gallery, which would pay tribute to her with the exhibition entitled “The Herodias stories”. It is in Milan where she moved to and where Carla Tolomeo would begin a new fervid artistic season by putting to good use the studies done by Vittore Carpaccio’s work.

Between 1976 and 1980 Carla Tolomeo exhibited in Europe: Vienna, Geneva, Zurich, Athens. To the memorialist Giacomo Casanova she dedicated drawings and etchings, accompanied by a text written by Leonardo Sciascia. After an interesting experience in Paraguay, Carla Tolomeo’s work found its center again in Milan. The creative work was accompanied by the teaching of incision at the Brera Academy and in Venice.

In 1995 the artist exhibited a series of Variations from the works of Mantegna in Mantua. In 1996 her works were showcased in Prague’s Museum of the Italian Lazzaretto, and later in Zagreb, host of the Institute of Italian Culture. In 1997 Carla Tolomeo was invited to London, to hold at the Leicester Galleries, a great exhibition: Omaggio a Leonardo (Homage to Leonardo).

In the same year she began to exhibit the “Sedie” (Chairs), marking a turning point in her artistic production.

With these creations, a real pretext of literate amusement was immediately accepted by the whole world, and Carla Tolomeo surprised her collectors. As she writes in the presentation of her first catalog dedicated to the Sedie-Sculture (Chairs-Sculptures), her artistic philosophy consisted of a mutation-transformation of the chair from an ordinary object to an art object, starting from the most banal and domestic piece of furniture. The strength of her experience of life, her studies, the richness of her research on Borges, her skill, her study of Japanese painting and teachings of her ancient teacher, Giorgio de Chirico, Carla Tolomeo was able to transform the chairs into totems: a fish wriggle or even a flower of an enormous size.Therefore, her Chairs-Sculptures became something magical, recalling a childhood almost refound but with a pinch of malice towards those whose life had been lived intensely.