Serena Ferrario
Serena Ferrario is the 7th winner of the renowned Horst Janssen Graphic Art Prize, awarded this year for the first time at the Hamburger Kunsthalle. Under the motto Where the Drawings Live, the artist presents an expansive installation centring on her graphic works, collages and films. Ferrario sees her exhibition as an open process that not only provides insights into her studio work, but above all reveals the connection between the different media through which her figures are brought to life – whether in the form of drawings or in film. By not simply hanging her graphic works on the wall but embedding them in a stage-like, constructed scenery, she creates a unique cosmos of different characters that react and relate to one another. According to the artist, they become figures who appear and »live« in the exhibition space – at eye level with the audience.
Having grown up in Italy, Romania and Germany, biographical, cultural and social experiences and observations from her travels play an important role in Serena Ferrario’s artistic work. In her multifaceted installations, she integrates found material with newspaper clippings, objects and black-and-white film images. Where the Drawings Live not only sheds a light on the various aspects of Ferrario’s oeuvre, but also explicitly takes a look »behind the scenes«: from the questioning of one's own work in the studio to the presentation in public space and the reactions of the public.
Biography:
Serena Alma Ferrario was born in Crema near Milan in 1986. She lives and works in Germany, Italy and Romania. From 2010 to 2017, she studied at the Braunschweig University of Art with Wolfgang Ellenrieder, Isa Melsheimer and Nadine Fecht, among others. In 2016 she received her diploma with distinction and was appointed master student in 2017. Ferrario was a scholarship holder of the Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes and was awarded the Master Student Scholarship of the Stiftung Braunschweigischer Kulturbesitz and the Max Ernst Scholarship of the city of Brühl in 2017. In 2018, Serena Ferrario received the Karl Schmidt-Rottluff Scholarship.
Accompanying the exhibition, a publication (German/English) with texts by Leona Marie Ahrens and Alexandra Wach and an interview with Serena Ferrario will be published by KERBER-Verlag.
Supported by: Claus Hüppe Foundation
