Paola Bazz
Altrincham, Greater Manchester, United Kingdom
About Paola Bazz
I am an Italian-born and Manchester, UK-based artist.
My work explores the constant change of our identity, its destruction and re-construction through portraiture using, as a medium, everyday discarded materials such as printed-paper recycled from magazines, newspapers, leaflets and catalogues.
Figure and portrait has always been one of my favourite subjects. I like to depict people I don’t know – strangers. I use images of real people. Sometimes they are ordinary people taken from the social media (Instagram, Pinterest), sometimes celebrities whose faces can be seen everywhere in countless photographs.
A kaleidoscope of constant and rapid changes in which nothing keeps its shape characterizes our society. Our identity is in a permanent state of flux and constantly changing.
Like our identities, my portraits are fluid and mobile, constantly changeable as soon as the viewer moves, full of fragmented memories and stories. They become abstract compositions, although the original image is always recognizable forcing the viewer to engage with matters beyond what is immediately visible and encouraging different ways to look at things.
They are portraits, as they represent a person looking directly at the viewer, but they mean more than that. They represent universal features of our cultural environment. They symbolize our frantic everyday life. They give us vivid and constantly updated records on our culture.
Using everyday objects such as paper, whose use-value is ritualistic, emotional and consumerist, I also want people to investigate into our connection to the environment.
I've always been fascinated by printed-paper and by the power of communication contained within it. It bursts with information and it is witness of the time passing by, offering fragmented insights of our society.
By manipulating, transforming, selecting, cutting and folding paper, using different techniques, I create complex 3D collages.
Education:
Degree in Architecture at University IUAV in Venice
Exhibitions:
'Affordable Art Fair - New York'
28 Sept - 2 Oct 2016
London Contemporary Art Booth, Metropolitan Pavilion,125 W 18th St, New York, NY 10011, United States
'Art:Language:Location 2016'
group exhibition
Cambridge
10 - 29 October 2016
'CUTTING EDGE'
group exhibition
Store Street Gallery
32 Store Street
London WC1E 7B.
14 April - 7 May 2016
"GOING POP"
group exhibition
LACEY CONTEMPORARY
8 Clarendon Cross
W11 4AP
London
30 March – 9 April 2016
International Paper Art Biennial 2016
Cultural Community Center, Wespelaarsesteenweg 85, B 3150 Haacht – Belgium
21-28 February 2016
"FFOUND"
group exhibition
Woolff Gallery,
89 Charlotte St,
London,
W1T 4PU
5-25 November 2015
"Affordable Art Fair"
Battersea, London, UK
with Fflow, Woolff Gallery, London (booth E12)
12 / 15 March 2015
Complex Simplicity
solo exhibition
Design Hotel Ca' Pisani
Rio Terrà Foscarini 979 30123 Venice - Italy
6th November 2014 - 4th January 2015
"Liquid Identities"
CARTASIA
Biennal of Contemporary Art
Lucca, Real Collegio, Italy
SEVENTH EDITION
28 June/ 02 August 2014
"Corner House Project:
Paola Bazz"
solo exhibition
Cornerhouse
70 Oxford Street,
Manchester M1 5NH UK
Thu 3 Apr 2014 – Tue 13 May 2014
"uP"
group exhibition
metamatic:taf’s gallery
Edessis 5
Thessaloniki - Greece
19th May - 31th August 2014
metamatic:taf’s gallery
Normanou 5
10555 Athens - Greece
6th - 28th March 2014
"Facce"
solo exhibition
Libreria La Cicala,
via Statale 5/L
23807 Merate, Milan, Italy
22th November- 31th Dicember 2008
"Fuori disegno"
group exhibition
La Maison d'Artiste Proposte d'Arte, via Bellezia 15,
Turin, Italy
November- 31th Dicember 2008
"Art Net Award 2008"
group exhibition
Net Center, Palazzo Tendenza
via S. Marco 11/C
35129 Padua, Italy
4th March- 24th April 2008
