CAROLINE BERGONZI
NOVEMBER 2023:
Art is not an activity but rather a nature, and I have always been motivated by a powerful natural impulse that I felt, and often fought. As a child, it fueled my curiosity as a playful scientific ongoing exploration of nature, language, spirituality, and philosophy, encouraged by my grandfather, Raymond Bergonzi, a multi-talented artist and thinker, retired from a government career. He initiated me to painting and sculpting. In this small town, learning was my window to the world and the future. From an early age, I was attracted to symbolism, myths and tales, especially to the themes of Asia, Orient, medieval times and Catholicism, always with a worldly perspective. I was genuinely drawn to the exotic backgrounds of my schoolmates and thrilled with my family travels. My grandfather mentor passed away when I was 12 and I felt like a creative orphan. Tucked by a strict upbringing, my life force turned into a contained anger that only art (and martial arts) allowed me to handle. That impulse turned into a drawing compulsion and became my shield and identity.
At 17, I moved to Paris to acquire the tools to obtain my freedom, and graduated from business school, majored in Finance, thinking I would create investment products, and postgraduate studies in fashion management. Education almost tamed me when I convinced myself that creativity was madness, an obstacle to successfully developing a “normal” life. What kept me on the artistic path was a series of opportunities. In business school, a friend challenged me to imagine a full “fashion show”. And I created one of spectacular costumes every year. I also spent time with a team of videogames designers. My six-month internship planned in a top bank “magically” turned out replaced by two months at the Christian Lacroix’ Haute Couture studio and four months in a major textile company, leading me to a successful thesis on branding, and the integration to the “Institut Français de la Mode” post graduate program. I learned a lot, spent a month in China for my next thesis, but my graduation did not bring me joy. I then still could not imagine being an artist. For my birthday, I treated myself with a two-week trip to New York, and just stayed there. What a fantastic world! I instantly felt seduced (and challenged) by this huge anonymous City full of travelers of diverse backgrounds, beliefs and religions, a place of all resources and possibilities. My sublime resume did not replace the lack of visa, and I started from scratch in a fashion start-up, where I eventually decided I would never be an employee again. Six months after arriving I just imploded. My mind went blank and I made my first painting, “Floating”, on a 130x130 cm canvas. For six years fashion was my freelance job, and art was my secret.” I am very attached to my Principality, yet I feel much more comfortable and creative, anonymous in big cities, to perpetually reinvent myself and create new works.
I started with painting and fully explored acrylic paints through small experimental series, mainly on square formats. Two branches emerged from my work: one of bright colored body shapes, and one of abstract centerless monochromatic expressions. Years later, I challenged myself to study live oil paint portraits. I met a new mentor, the now late Nelson Shanks, with the brilliant simplicity of his method, the legacy of his Philadelphia school, Studio Incamminati. The model needs to be seen in person, to perceive the magnificence of the skin, hair and textile tones, and the process is hypnotic as both model and artist get into a light trance. Winning grants at the Arts Students League and for Incamminati allowed me to progress. I remember him addressing me in the Q&A session at his school: “What about you, Monaco. Any questions?”
In parallel, my metal works is rooted in the funeral of my father, on Valentine’s Day 2009. Losing a parent shifts one’s world, as an everlasting pillar is removed. The time had come again for another transition. I returned to the Arts Students League and embraced metal welding and casting. I started sculpting wax and created several bronze statues and it felt as if the memory stored in my hands was turning the soft warm wax into curved body shapes. The very first one that emerged was a spontaneous death mask of my father. I had touched his forehead the last two months of his life and his silhouette rematerialized itself. As a young child, though, I would usually visit him in his garage, where he was when not saving lives at the hospital. Thus, I surprisingly felt at ease in the metal shops, where I joyfully picked up metal handling techniques and industrial tools. When I walk by a construction site in the street, I still enjoy inhaling the scent of burnt metal. I spent the following decade developing a very unique style, from a simple method, handmade, to a very complex result, on the theme of the phoenix, resurrection. My welding works grew into monumental public art. In 2015, New York offered me to create a monumental artwork for public display, and I created a 7-meter wingspan phoenix metal statue. This was a first-time event for Monaco and I welcomed Prince Albert on the Manhattan site, accompanied by the Monaco delegation of diplomatic and consular officers. In 2016, I was invited to exhibit in various parks, France and USA. Vision - 3 phoenix birds aligned with a game of perspective - was just invited to land permanently as the opening of the new path of sculptures of the prestigious Silvermine Art Center, in Connecticut.
I do love painting live portraits for the adrenalin rush and pure delight of translating a 3D person onto a 2D canvas as well as cutting 2D at sheets of steel to fold and shape them into 3D organic powerful forms. Sculpture though feels more free and “real” than paintings, especially when site specific. Since I started welding and casting, I also developed art jewelry, from hand sculpted wax, and started experimenting with glass.
I do view my work as a shared experience, somehow a therapy for myself and others, in that order. In 2016, I gratefully integrated the New York Society of Women Artists and the Sculptors Guild. What a relief to be part of artists’ groups.
My path has been designed along unexpected invitations. The 2010 Word Fair in Shanghai. The M2M public art year programme of monumental art installations, chronicled by the press and TV (New York Times, Wall Street Journal, BFM TV, NY1 TV). The panels on how to inspire women through art and design, at the United Nations (2014) and at the UNESCO in Paris (2017) … I then started curating exhibitions, the first being at Plaxal (LIC) in 2017. For the “AIAP auprès de l'UNESCO," I selected several New York based artists and works, and organized their participations at the Monaco exhibition. In July 2020, when the first confinement ended, I co-organized “CovidArt Monaco”. In 2021 I was asked to manage the pilot test for the first Sotheby’s “Private Sales Gallery” in Europe, and the gallery became permanent. I truly believe that allies are essential and trust the power of transformative power of going beyond (my own) limits.
My own inspiration moves in mysterious ways, from the inner impulse earlier mentioned, rage or other feelings and emotions, or from a playful mind game, challenge. It can also be about a theme I have obsessed about long enough to study and reinvent from scratch. This was the case for my continuous 12-meter long “Apocalypse by Saint John” painting series I invented in 2010, of 12 canvases. It was a two-month improvisation in a sleep-deprived trance and a thrilling fascination, mix of fear and excitement on the path so many artists have walked through ages in their attempts to understand and visually translate the biblical texts. What a rework of symbols! I even found in it. This might even be the possible inspiration for the movie Birds by Alfred Hitchcock.
Inspiration comes when invited and treated with utmost patience and reverence. I clear my studio, my desk, a large space on the wall, maybe place a white canvas for a few days before an idea emerges, and only keep white paper and pencils. Here again, I work with my subconscious, reptilian brain, I mean tapping into my hidden memories, watching the spontaneous thoughts of my brain, correspondences, and welcome its occasional surprises. If I stop painting for a while and get back to it, I usually start where I left. Creativity flows into those several branches, always differently depending on what media I use. This is fascinating.
As I am writing as a member of the NYSWA, I will share my experience on being a woman artist.
Firstly, declaring myself an artist turned out to be socially very difficult for my ego, especially when people would carry on with “sure, but beside art, what do you do?” Turning into a artist was challenging already in the prejudice of being a woman who took things easy, doing art as a hobby alternative to idleness. Unless famous and rich, it might actually be worse for a man in a men’s world. I first felt as a legitimate professional artist when I received my first O1 “Artist visa”.
Secondly, let’s acknowledge that it is the greatest privilege to be a free human being, free to choose a life path, free to even take the time to do something more than surviving or numbing ourselves with various addictions, including cell phones or TV. Very few of us have the time, safety, and resources to create anything. True artists, no matter their gender, have a very different vision of life compared to the rest of the population. As Rainier Maria Rilke states it in his “Letters to a young poet”, one should not do art if one has the choice. There might be differences in the type of art, but it is a matter of determination and courage. Thanks to the works of feminist groups and individuals, today it is possible and maybe easier for women artists to reach fame.
Thirdly, I think and communicate feeling as a neutral gender person, a universal human being before being a woman, and I aspire at making universal artworks. This said, I still occasionally feel dysfunctional, a bit regretful, and guilty, for not having been a wife and even more a mother, and this especially in Monaco where family is top main value. I am also aware that if I had been, I would not have done half of what I did, explored these techniques, worked so many nights on projects, weeks, months, learned web design techniques by myself, written my 400-page art book, afforded my regular worthy burnouts in spite of healthy food habits and support of Chinese medicine. Without the driven isolation of a mystic, I could not have created all that art. Up to me to turn it into a legacy.
I will conclude with three female sculptors who really caught my attention: Alice Aycock (1946) with “Park Avenue Paper Chase”, an installation of white metal monumental swirls. Chakaia Booker (1957) with sculptures made of cutout black tires. And any artwork by Lee Bentacou (1931).
Thank you for your interest.