Monica Zani – Living

Monica Zani designs a collection of home textiles made by the Arcolaio.

Monica’s work is instantly recognisable; her pieces share characte- ristics that remain, despite the continual evolution of her style, never-ending, as an incessant need to understand. The techniques, may change but the foundation is her taste and her character. Monica uses her art as a language; she ably expresses herself in the rawest and purest form. But not only herself, indeed her art introduces characters; for the most part these are women from the past who actually lived, with their decisive and direct gazes. Monica has a connection with these women, an obsessive research and observation. The women she draws are fearless, proud and firm, they evoke freedom and courage. They are always themselves and possess no limits.

Monica says, “I stop and let myself feel inspired by these women: freedom, courage, charm, depth: I don’t think while I’m working, I engrave impatiently, anxious to see if they will be alive when I get round to printing them; only then do I gain my freedom and feel good.” Firstly, she prints on yellowish paper, love letters, then the paper is no longer sufficient to express the intensity of the colours.

In this way the woman’s story is welcomed by the canvas.
In the fevered research to find the right place for her women, Monica Zani has decided to experiment with materials. Stronger and more resistant than paper and interlaced with family histories. Old flour sacks straight from the mill or torn wedding linen given new life with colours, reborn even for the artist: green, blue, red, which appear on the material and move with it. Free canvases are born in the absurd silence of quarantine: original pieces which want to fill space with their movement. They aren’t enclosed in a frame, they are dynamic yet concrete.

On the journey among women, the destiny of the meeting between colour and material seems already assigned: l’Arcolaio (the loom) an hi- storic company managed by pragmatic, solid women who invest in their sensitivity in the pursuit of beauty. And Monica Zani, a visceral artist, whose personal journey follows a course dictated by her artistic expressive necessity which is both reflexive and dynamic. From this a vigorous collaboration is created, which manages to recount both the artist and l’Arcolaio in a distinctive and coherent exhibition.

 Monica Zani was born and lives in Faenza. She received a diploma as an Art teacher and a further diploma in Graphic design. She attended many different specialised courses in illustration, prin- ting, engraving, xylography and calligraphy. She has participated in many shows, both individual and collective, as an illustrator and painter, both in Italy and abroad. She works closely with publishing houses such as Carthusia edizioni and magazines like ELLE, FOOL and L’Espresso.She has been awarded several prizes and received numerous recognitions, among which, the selection for the illustrator’s show at the Bologna Children’s book fair and the annual Autors of Images.