Marcelo Fernandez Mainardi

Artist Statement

Beginning as a child with my mother, ceramist, and giving the first steps in this art, later I incorporate techniques that allowed me to expand the repertoire of shapes, textures and designs, to this I added my research and inquiry that gave me my training as a Biologist .

I focus my work on people and place. I look for forms and materials to communicate my thoughts.

Environment, evolution of man, development on the planet and consequences on nature, are keys of my work. They have always an inherent relationship with nature.

I always try to depict a positive message too - the persistence of nature in recapturing what once belonged to the earth.

I have found a very strong point of connection with the mud-clay, because the fact of creation and destruction from this, is organic and symbolizes to sum up the beginning of our own lives.

Nature, fragility, weightlessness and repetition are all key elements that inspire me to explore and shape the porcelain with spontaneity, creating new organic forms inspired by the natural world. I am fascinated by the concept of multiples and the possibilities that it offers me to work with an extensive range of scale.

-- Marcelo Fernandez Mainardi

Bio

I was born in Buenos Aires, where I live and work.

Biologist, designer and teacher by profession. Ceramic artist by vocation and passion.

• Biologist, Universidad Nacional de Buenos Aires (BA Program)

• Istituto d’Arte Stadale Gaetano Ballardini in Faenza, Italy

• Laboratories with Bruno Munari, Palazzo Reale, Milan, 1997

• Laboratory Beba Restelli, Faenza, Italy, 1997

• Mirtha Dermisache’s workshops, 1997/8

• Instituto Municipal de Cerámica de Avellaneda, 2000

• Independent Workshops Alejandra RJones, Leo Tavella, Marta Harispe

• Seminars and Work Clinics with Graciela Olio, Gabriel Baggio, Hernán Marina, Fabiana Barreda, Cristina Martinelli, Laura Spivak, Olga Pareja Lucu (Uruguay), Pilar Cotter (Spain), Alice Diniz (Portugal), Ester Bonomo and Tulio de Sagastizábal.

• Filete Porteño (is a type of artistic drawing, with stylised lines and flowered, climbing plants, typically used in Buenos Aires, Argentina) with Silvia Dotta

• Photography : Matias Kritz , Marcos Zimmermann, Fefo Veloso, Jorge Lorenzón, Esteban Pastorino Díaz

• Video clinic, with Diego Stickar

• Project and Ceramic Design with Ester Bonomo (Architect and Ceramic Artist ) 2015 / 2016

• Contemporary Jewelry with Jorge Castañón, at La Nave Workshop, Buenos Aires. 2015

• Seminar “Contemporary Art Practices fibers” with Leo Chiachio and Daniel Giannone. June 2016

• Ceramic Crystallization Seminar by Fabiana Sacnum. August 2017

• Contemporary Ceramic Seminar – ISA, University of the Arts. Havana, Cuba – January 2018

Since 2009, I research on ceramics ceramic-graphic and screen printing techniques applied to the ceramic support. My works show some of this technique.

I have participated in collective exhibitions and been selected in many competitions worldwide where I have been awarded with prizes and recognitions.

Participation as speaker at VI Conference of the Fire’s Arts – School of Ceramic Rogelio Yrurtia – Mar del Plata (September 2016)

My work is part of important private and public collections, national and international.

— Marcelo Fernandez Mainardi