VALENTINA FURIAN

Valentina Furian (Venice, 1989) attended the Visual Arts course at the IUAV University of Venice and at the ESBA in Nantes. In 2018 she graduated at IUAV with a thesis on the role of the domesticated animal in the visual arts.

The artist works mainly with moving images. The video gives her the possibility to document sculptural installations and performative actions planned in front of the camera. Her research focuses on the relationship between reality and fiction, staging an imaginary that flows from everyday dimension into a fantastic one.The aseptic settings that she imagines and draws are cohabited by alchemical entities that upset ourperception. Her work is animated by a strong tension towards the manipulation of the elements that compose it. The issues addressed in each new production investigate the relationship between man and nature, the artist is particularly interested in exploring animal domestication as a form of human domination as well as human domestication in relation to social rules. Her obsession with the boundary between reality and fiction develops from the study of the role of truth and the role of falsehood through a performative experience.
The works are conceived by the artist’s imagination as already shaped images, her role is to make them real and tangible. A careful study of light allows Furian to manipulate the visual material – often composed of simple, direct and yet very intense images – and include it into artificial scenarios, sometimes recreating them only through perception.

In 2020 the MUSE – Science Museum in Trento, Italy, inaugurated Nautilus, and UNA gallery in Piacenza, inaugurated Cari Cani, two solo shows by the artist. In 2019 she presented her video work at MAXXI, Rome and in the same year she was artist-in-residence in Mumbai with ArtOxygen in collaboration with The Blank Contemporary Art, she presented a screening in Sunaparanta Center of Contemporary Art in Panjib, Goa. In 2019 her work was also presented in the group exhibition Immersione Libera, organized by Galleria Continua with Marina Nissim; in 2018 she was selected by Lorenzo Balbi for That’s IT!,  a generational exhibition of artists born in the 80’s, at the Mambo Museum in Bologna and she also participated to Straight-up@ExtraDry video art award. She worked in institutional and experimental spaces such as: Sunaparanta Center for Contemporary Art (Goa, IN), Method Gallery, ArtOxygen (Mumbai, IN), MAXXI (Rome), MUSE (Trento), MAMbo (Bologna), BACO, The Blank Contemporary Art (Bergamo, IT), UNA (Piacenza, IT), Civic Museum of Bassano del Grappa (IT), CareOf, ViaFarini, Dimora Artica, Pelagica Gallery (Milan, IT), Bevilacqua la Masa Foundation (Venice, IT), GalerieSAM83 (CZ).