Architect, Valeria Nuzzo lives and works in Salerno, combining her art practice with her professional life in various fields. Always fascinated by art, she began to study it passionately as a child, and to experiment with its techniques. She was a self-taught, and when, much later, she dealt with children's drawing, she rediscovered in children's graphic gesture the spontaneous expressiveness long sought after by Picasso, Klee, Mirò. Her planning of educational workshops focused on the creative reassembly of modern works of art; this had a powerful impact on her imagination, feeding into the creation of her work.
For her PhD in Urban Design at the Federico II University of Naples, she worked on the theme of architectural typology. Subsequently she dealt with children's drawing, examining some crucial questions that it raised. Several books resulted from these interests. She has taught at the University of Salerno. And focusing her attention on teaching through art and about art, she has also created workshops to develop the natural creativity of children, with a constant search into the languages and nature of the creative processes of modern and contemporary art. She currently teaches in secondary schools and conducts graphic-pictorial workshops.
Alongside her activity as an architect and teacher, she also produces works on canvas and wood, made with mixed techniques (bitumen, acrylic, oil). She has exhibited in Italy and recently, abroad too, winning first prize at the BIARCO International Biennial (Colombia), virtual section.
Her production ranges from abstract and material works to others in which there are allusions to the figurative. In her creations she "leads to reasoning" the shapes and colors, tempering down the apparently random and spontaneous dimension always present in the initial genesis, one which draws on an imaginative and irrational sphere, triggered by the gesture and contact with the materials (wood, sawdust , bitumen, etc…).
The suggestion nurtured for the material was fueled not only by her admiration for the works of painters such as Antoni Tàpies or Burri, but by construction sites where, as an architect, she experienced the aesthetic potential of raw materials not yet revealed in a complete form, and also of corroded materials, torn from ruins or from decaying buildings.Other powerful references are those related to her inner world, images inextricably linked to childhood memories, which are processed for a long time in the memory, transforming into archetypal signs. The images created try to convey the emotions of delicacy, freshness, nostalgia for a lost time, suspension of time internalized.Her studies on children's drawing have allowed her to recover an interest in the primitive and childlike, an interest that she has materialized in her latest research and in works created in participation with children.
Collective Exhibitions
12 August-21
September 2018 - "Capitombolando", Buccino, Antica Volcei, Salerno.
10-25 March 2018 -
"Arkeo reperti", Conventino di Lodi Vecchio.
24 April- 2 May 2018 -
"Far sentire l’arte", Unione Italiani dei Ciechi e degli Ipovedenti
ETS – APS, Chiesa dell'Angelo, Lodi.
7-
21 December 2019 - 24th SATURARTE International Competition of
Contemporary Art, Palazzo Stella, Genova.
14-17 February 2020 -
Fiera Arte Genova, Blue Pavilion, 16th Edition, Genova.
29-13 June 2020 - Satura
- "Rinascenza", Palazzo Stella, Genova.
27
June-11 July 2020 - Satura - GENOA ART EXPO 2020, 6th International Exhibition of
Contemporary Art, Palazzo Stella, Genova.
6-21 November 2021 -
IV Edizione della Biennale di Salerno, 2020, Palazzo Fruscione,
Salerno.
16 to 25 July 2022 -
"IKIGAI – Arte la ragione per vivere", Antiquarium of Merì (Messina).
20 October -20
November 2022 - Bienal De Arte Contemporaneo Internacional Armenia Colombia
BIARCO.
12 – 26
November - Galleria Zero Purificato (ROMA), “Il
Giocattolo”, Castello Theodoli, Sambuci (TV).
November 2022 - 25th SATURARTE International Competition of
Contemporary Art, Palazzo Stella Genova
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
5-31 January 2018 - "Dinamiche del comporre", promoted by
FAI, presentations by Matilde Romito and Mario Quadraroli, Salerno
3-10 December 2022 – "Percorsi di forme"" in "Le Stanze
dell'Arte. Personali a Palazzo Fruscione"", Palazzo Fruscione,
Salerno.
MENTIONS AND AWARDS
12 August- 21 September 2018 - Competition "Capitombolando",
Buccino, Antica Volcei, Salerno, special mention.
6-21 November 2021 - IV edition della Biennale di
Salerno - second prize, abstract section, palazzo Fruscione, Salerno.
20 October-20 November 2022 - IV Bienal de
Arte de Armenia BIARCO - first prize, abstract painting section,
virtual section.
