VANIA ELETTRA TAM
Biography
Vania Elettra Tam is a painter born in Como, but artistically trained in Milan, the city where she lives.
“Since early childhood I have always had a pencil in my hand and being from Como, my first job could only be in the field of textile design. But at the age of 35 I decided to give up everything and devote myself exclusively to my artistic career. Almost immediately, I was invited to do a solo exhibition in an institutional space in my hometown. This exhibition proved fundamental for me, both because it was an important confidence booster and because it focused on what would become my stylistic signature.
My poetics consists of analysing everyday life by ironically emphasising the more paradoxical and surreal aspects of everyday life. For instance, in ConTAMinAzione, my first anthological exhibition of 2017 at the Palazzo della Ragione in Mantua, my alter ego humbly takes care of the oculus of Mantegna’s Bridal Chamber. For instance, in ConTAMinAzione, my first anthological exhibition of 2017 at the Palazzo della Ragione in Mantua, my alter ego humbly takes care of the oculus of Mantegna’s Bridal Chamber. Sometimes, moreover, I break the barriers of time by inserting anachronistic elements or realise futuristic half-man, half-machine beings, as is happening in my very latest works.
I believe that the task of an artist is to immerse himself in the reality around him, engaging not only on an aesthetic level. For example, during the quarantine I created some works that bear witness to the difficulty of the moment, but also send out a message of hope and show a way through the difficulties. I am a great believer in the ability of art to find new solutions precisely because of its creativity and universality. Reviewing some of my paintings from the past, I realised how many of them seem to be ahead of their time, almost confirming a slogan borrowed from Lamberto Pignotti ‘art says it first, art says it best’. (V. E. Tam)”
Vania Elettra Tam has been active in the artistic field for about twenty years, not only as a painter but also co-managing the Wannabee Gallery in Milan for a while. She was also editor-in-chief of Frattura Scomposta contemporary art magazine and held the art column in Playboy Italia magazine for over a year.
Tam’s most important exhibitions include participation in the 54th Venice Biennale – Sgarbi’s diffuse Italian Pavilion at Palazzo Te in Mantua. In 2011, she was invited by Edoardo di Mauro to the selected group exhibition ‘Un altro storia’ at San Carpoforo in Milan. The following year, he participated in the international exhibition ‘Perturbaciones’ at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Havana. In 2013, Ferdinando Creta invited her as an exponent of the best female art at ‘Isis Contemporanea’ at the Arcos Museum in Benevento. In 2016, Franca Marri curated her solo exhibition ‘Kanon Regole Ferree’ in Trieste, presented by Edward Lucie-Smith. In 2016, he held his solo exhibition ‘Oko 10’ as a special guest at the Šibenik City Museum on the occasion of the Croatian International Children’s Festival. In 2017, at the Palazzo della Ragione, the Municipality of Mantua realised his anthological exhibition ‘conTAMinAzione’ curated by Carlo Micheli. He participated in the 2016 and 2017 editions of Wopart Art Fair in Lugano. In 2019, ‘ConTAMinAzione’ is presented at Palazzo Ducale in Genoa, curated by Virginia Monteverde. Also curated by Monteverde, he participated in ‘Leonardesca’ in the prestigious venues of the Museum of St. Augustine in Genoa and then the Castle of the Dukes of Pomerania in Szczecin, Poland. He created the banner for the 2019 Palio di Montagnana, which is on display in his solo exhibition at Castel San Zeno. His works are part of the collection of the Museo Parisi Valle in Maccagno (VA), the Museo di Palazzo Te in Mantova, the Direzione Nazionale CGIL in Rome and the CAB Art Gallery collection in Amman, Jordan. In addition to the critics already mentioned, Ivan Quaroni, Igor Zanti, Alessandra Redaelli, Vincenzo Giulio Farachi, Claudio Rizzi, Carlo Ghielmetti, Sergio Gaddi… have also written about his work.
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