Valentina Pini

Valentina Pini's photogravures show an oval figure with bright colors in the midst of dense forest vegetation. The image evokes an exotic bird proudly showing off its magnificent plumage. There is something strange about the scene, reminiscent of a surrealist collage in which fragments of images from various sources have been brought together. The mysterious object is in fact the bone or inner shell of a cuttlefish. Because of its high calcium content and brittle consistency, the cuttlebone is also used as food for pets such as canaries or parrots. The title of the edition “Internal Shell” emphasizes that the shell is not located on the outside as a protective sheath, but inside the cuttlefish. It is a paradoxical peculiarity that reveals the vulnerability of the animal and particularly fascinates the artist. Pini finds equally exciting the “technological” capabilities of the cuttlebone, which the cuttlefish fills with gas to reach the surface of the water and soaks up with liquid to dive down again.

Inspired by the feather-like shape of the cuttlebone and the ability of cuttlefish to camouflage themselves with different patterns, much like chameleons, Pini dipped cuttlebones in various tinctures to color the material from the inside with the help of capillary force. Pini searched for a suitable environment for the colorful shell and finally photographed it on a branch in the forest. For the graphic realization of her vision, Pini used photogravure as it is ideally suited for reproducing the photographic effects of sharpness and blurriness as well as the fine nuances of color. For the strong color gradient, the technique “encrage à la poupée” was used, an elaborate procedure in which several colors are applied to the plate and printed simultaneously.

The starting point of Pini's artistic practice is a fascination and curiosity for objects, especially from the natural realm. The artist explores them in relation to their history and socio-cultural significance, to their practical use and physical properties. With subtle, often playful interventions, she appropriates the explored objects and embeds them in imaginative, associative narratives. Through this defamiliarization, Pini confronts us with our own perceptions: how do we view the world around us and the foreign, when does an organism become a utilitarian object, when a precious curiosity, and when a merely decorative ornament.

Valentina Pini's last institutional solo exhibition took place at Kunsthalle Arbon (2020). Her works have been shown internationally in group exhibitions such as Kunstverein Wagenhalle in Stuttgart (2022) or the National Museum of Fine Arts in Santiago de Chile (2021), among others. Her works are in the art collections of the city and canton of Zurich, among others.