Eva Marisaldi is an artist from Bologna (born in 1966). She belongs to a new generation that has been working in Italy for about ten years (Liliana Moro, Mario Airo, etc.).

For her first exhibition in Belgium at the Meert Rihoux Gallery, she presents an installation that combines Plexiglas boxes and film projections. The four transparent boxes are filled with black and red fabric objects, figurative and evocative of biomorphic forms… These sewn ‘fabric drawings’, a kind of pattern scrap, also evoke, through their stitching, the domain usually assigned to women. Each work bears a title in plaster letters assembled from a typeface taken from children’s books. The design of these objects can be reflected on the wall depending on the daylight. The viewer discovers a repertoire of shapes similar to tactile pictograms. These inaccessible objects invite touch, caress, manipulation… They bear the titles: Great Start, Tomorrowland, Hard Yoga, Merry go round.

The other side of the exhibition, accessible through a striped curtain made by the artist, bears the title of the exhibition: ” Mrs. Golighty passing ,‘ an invitation to enter the projection space, where seven films follow one another: ’Interference.” Each film, lasting a few minutes, evokes an encounter that turns into an argument between a man and a woman, or two women, or two men, in seven different cities. Eva Marisaldi’s idea is to present one film each day of the week. The simple scenario follows a character who is caught up in the randomness of walking, bumping into and jostling a passer-by, finding a newspaper and meeting someone else… All possible interferences open the film. The absence of words makes the image more striking and thus gives the viewer the opportunity to interpret the events as they wish. The image without language draws in the viewer, who thinks and reflects freely on this encounter where communication seems difficult or impossible. The camera emphasises the design by repeatedly focusing on the ground, the geometric shapes of the pavements, and several recurring objects or actions: the flag, tying a shoelace, a puddle… The projection space becomes a poetic space, where visitors can sit on stone-shaped cushions.

Eva Marisaldi recently participated in the Sonsbeek exhibition (Arnhem) and the fourth Venice Biennale this summer.