Bea Bonafini is a London and Rome based artist whose interdisciplinary practice draws from oneiric visions, overlapping personal and ancient mythologies. Her tactile, intimate worlds centre around sensuality, vulnerability and fantasy, forming swirling scenarios that are fragmented and multi-layered. Figures are evanescent and transcendental, referencing spiritual imagery where fluid bodies collide, disperse, swim, fly and fall. The focus on universal human experiences – birth, death, illness, love – unfolds and proliferates ambiguously, simultaneously graspable and fleeting.
Bonafini’s work expands the possibilities and interplay of painting, tapestry and sculpture while reinventing artisanal techniques. Holistic perspectives are developed in close dialogue with architecture, where works are expanded in space to envelop the viewer. Acting as protected spheres, Bonafini’s installations act as openings onto encounters between the earthly and the otherworldly.
Bea Bonafini’s exhibitions include Setareh Gallery, Berlin (solo); Renata Fabbri, Milan (solo); Eduardo Secci, Florence (solo); Operativa, Rome (solo); Fondazione Sandretto, Guarene; Bosse & Baum, London (solo); Chloe Salgado, Paris(solo); Lychee One, London (solo); Zabludowicz Collection (solo); Fondazione Sandretto, Turin; Choi & Lager, Cologne; Premio Cairo at Palazzo Reale, Milan; The Italian Cultural Institute, London; and TJ Boulting, London. Residencies include The British School at Rome (BSR) (2019-21); Viaggio in Sicilia (2021); Fibra Residency, Mexico(2019); Platform Southwark Studio Residency, London (2018); Fibra Residency, Colombia (2018); Fieldworks StudioResidency, London (2017) and Villa Lena, Tuscany (2016).
