Giulia Andreani — Born 1985, Venice, Italy. Lives and works in Paris, France. Represented by Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin/Paris/London.

 

Giulia Andreani focuses on the pictorial genre of history painting, repurposing personal memorabilia and archival photographs to address forgotten histories, often through a feminist lens. Recalling the collage of Max Ernst and Hannah Höch, the artist uses watercolour and acrylic to reproduce, alter and combine motifs from these photographs generating new layers of meaning. Working primarily in Payne’s Grey, a blue-grey hue at once warm and cold, and a possible nod to Gerhard Richter, Andreani presents figurative work untainted by the artifice and power of painterly colour. The artist also looks to the aesthetics of Italian cinema including Pietro Germi’s tragicomic neorealism, Pier Paolo Pasolini’s hyper-mannerism and Luchino Visconti’s decadent lighting. 

 

Themes central to Andreani’s practice include women’s position in society, motherhood, trauma and forgotten figures in political and art history. The artist addresses notions of historical amnesia and unearths buried narratives, specific and universal. She creates a dialogue with the past to render visible those made invisible, prescient stories that can guide us into the future. 

 

Andreani graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice in 2008 followed by a master's degree in Art History from Paris IV-Sorbonne University in 2010. She completed a residency at Villa Medici in Rome in 2017-18.