Bianca Bondi
Johannesburg, South Africa 1986
Places as well as objects that have a special meaning for Bianca Bondi are inhabited with “spirit”. Through her research on concepts of animism and spiritualism, as well as OOO theory (Object oriented ontology), she explores the gap between our reality and this so-called invisible world. All the while developing a body of work oriented around material exploration with a special sensitivity to a flux of states.
Through her work she experiments with various raw materials and examines what intrinsic properties, or energy, by diverse cultures they are supposed to possess. Bondi is curious how these beliefs exist, translate and interact with contemporary life and how she can convey the essence of her research through materials and other forms resulting in strange and new surfaces. It pushes the symbolic into the materials used to give substance to the work. Water, salt, latex and copper are her main resources. She correlates these organic combinations to various current situations flirting with spiritual, psychological, and social subject matter while always honoring the intangible. The meeting of these various substances sometimes produces chemical upheavals that turn copper objects into submarine fossils.
Her work has been shown internationally in places like Banjoun Station, Cameroon, (2011); CCA Ujazdowski, Warsaw, PO (2014); Galerist, Istanbul, TR (2015); Château Roche Guyon, FR (2015 and 2016); New Jörg, Vienna (2016); Plato, Ostrava, CZ (2017); JosedelaFuente Gallery, Santander, SP (2017) and TagTeam Studio, Bergen, NO (2017). She is the first non-national to have her work included in the 8th edition of Orońsko Young Sculpture Triennale, PO (2017). She was a finalist for the Emerige Revelations Scholarship (2015), which presents the emerging French scene and has been shortlisted three times for the François Schneider Foundation “contemporary talents”, shortlisted for the Meurice Art prize (2018) as well as le Prix des Amis de Palais de Tokyo (2018). Recently her work was included in “Crashtest, the molecular revolution” (2018) curated by Nicolas Bourriaud at MoCo, la Panacée, Montpellier.
Recent solo projects include “Mother Lemon” with JosédelaFuente at A Pick Gallery (2019), “Repressed memories return as myths …” at the Cité des Sciences, Paris (2017), “Gradually then Suddenly”, (2018), Galerie 22.48m2, Paris; SWEETTEETH, Hazard Gallery, South Africa (2018), and Art Cologne, (2018).
Her works are part of important collections such as Nirox Foundation, FYAC, Sindika Dokolo Foundation and SAFFCA (South African Foundation for Contemporary Arts).
