2023 Autumn Art Release
November 9, 2023
Elisa Valenti
Valenti’s newest body of work takes her paintings into three dimension as she paints with clay to create a collection of relief sculptures.
Fat Barbie A New Classic, leads the viewer through over 20 works that weave a story of past and present, allowing a peek into Valenti’s lush world of voluptuous figures, an homage to unrepresented body types, and her fascination with classical and paleolithic themes. But this time she paints with clay creating movement and vitality through graceful still figures.
In this collection Valenti provocatively and with a bit of sarcasm and humor, titles each Barbie with names and words taken directly from her own experiences and wonders what life would be like if Fat Barbie existed when she was growing up.
Some of the titles are shocking but Valenti wants the viewer to speak them out loud and to feel their intensity.
If you have interest in any of the featured artworks, visit the sculpture gallery .
The light takes your eye across the canvas as though to wash away the figures long harbored feelings of obscurity and self-doubt. The Barbie doll representing years of comparison and insecurity lays unclothed and vulnerable, set aside-no longer a focal point, releasing her from its grips and allowing her to own her self-image-never giving that power away again.
Putting Together All the Pieces, a two-piece diptych painting features a reclined figure in Valenti’s signature color-block painting style. She rests her head upon her hand in tranquility surrounded by objects- the puzzle pieces that finally come together to release years of heartache, grief, and emotional labor. The last piece fastened in place fills her heart with the clarity she always wanted and never new she needed.
Each relief sculpture is encased in an ornate frame and tells a story of a modern, unretouched, gracefully aging Fat Barbie. A Barbie we wish we had to play with in the past and one that in 25,000 years will continue to represent who we are today.
Fat Barbie defies the contemporary cultural obsession with plastic and gives us Not Made of Plastic Barbie, three graces highlighting the dissipating notion of aging gracefully.
If you have interest in any of the featured artworks, email info@elisavalentistudio.com. These pieces will be available November 12th
Valenti’s Fat Barbie embodies the curvaceous fertile mounds of the Venus of Willendorf, the soft, sumptuous rolls of Renaissance bodies and the stoic beauty of Classical sculptures to create A New Classic.
If you have interest in any of the featured artworks, visit the sculpture gallery .
Breaking Generational Trauma Barbie depicts three figures on a plain white vessel. This vessel contains the metaphorical pain of the women who have come before us who have endured and struggled and in turn cast their trauma on generations after them.
The three engraved figures represent healing of the generations of the past, of themselves and of ones to come.
Valenti continues to demonstrate her fixation with human form, breadth and volume. She introduces Fat Barbie, a new character into her world of self-portraiture, continuing her mission of painting and sculpting bodies that “look like mine” . She continues to paint the ambiguous face and focuses all her attention on the body-creating a looking glass for viewers to see themselves in the work.
Along with framed relief sculptures, she creates free-standing fat sculptures; her version of the paleolithic fertility goddesses but without the connotation to fertility. She prefers to call them “authenticity goddesses”. And creates them playfully pretending to be that paleolithic person from long ago, sculpting with the rich magic they were intended to embody.
Do you know why the sculptures have a layer of gold applied to the bottom? They stand on gold hidden from the viewer because sometimes we need a reminder that our beauty exists even if others fail to see it.
Elisa Valenti hand painted a mural inspired by “My Shadow is Tired of Waiting for Me” at The Other Art Fair. This painting is available to collect along with her sister painting.