Anna NeroShiny Shiny

Sort of sea-cucumbers turn-y and squirmy are waving on the monochrome squares, crawling into pipes and crossing soft pieces of fabric.

Anna Nero’s work is all about humor, sensitivity, and ambivalence that are revealed by different textures, colors, and shapes. Her way to use precise geometrical composition and bright colors recall Russian constructivism as she quotes Art History by placing specific items like pieces of folds or mirrors. Tracing fluid lines intertwined with geometric patterns, she builds a playful universe in which objects generate narratives. Also influenced by advertising and popular culture, she paints sleeks elements, grids, frames, shelves or other structures coming from mass-produced, decoration and everyday objects on the canvas.

Then proceeding layer by layer, almost like a collage, she arranges in a more intuitive way animist objects that can be identified as sausages, dicks, quirky ribbons or other sex toys which steam onto the calibrated colored backgrounds. Referring to « Venus in furs » from The Velvet Underground, the objects become subjects enhancing an idea of fetishism and create a kinky relationship between the spectator and the paintings. Nevertheless, irony and humor have to be absolutely taken into consideration, especially when ceramic works enter the game.

The objects seem to have escaped the paintings. Looking like handmade toys, these kinds of artifacts from parallel worlds put in question our relation to society and consumption whereas the contrasting textures and the naughty’ shapes demonstrate the sensuality and the ‘shiny, shiny’ side of Anna Nero’s work.