{"id":15286,"date":"2025-02-07T16:48:27","date_gmt":"2025-02-07T14:48:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artificialis.eu\/?p=15286"},"modified":"2025-02-07T16:48:27","modified_gmt":"2025-02-07T14:48:27","slug":"artwork-of-the-month-february-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artificialis.eu\/?p=15286","title":{"rendered":"Artwork of the Month \/ February 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Expiation<\/span><\/em><\/strong>
\nPatricia Jacomella Bonola<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

2020
\nWool object
\n\u00d8 80 cm<\/p>\n

\u201cExpiation\u201d by Patricia Jacomella Bonola is a huge multi-coloured ball of wool. The oversized object has a diameter of 80 cm and the thread is accordingly thick. Only the end of the tread reveals that the most visible thread is composed by a thinner one. Despite the size the ball seems to be innocent and friendly by its colours. However, the title hints to a bad behaviour, to a guilt someone has incurred. To discover what this could be, it is important to know the origine of the wool and how the artist processed it.<\/p>\n

Patricia collected pullovers and other knitwear from landfills. Often bought in low price fast fashion stores, people throw the garments away, when they are simply out of fashion. Frequently, they are also damaged due to their poor quality. Therefore, clothing drives cannot use these textiles, and they end up as rubbish. The artist wants to point at this bad habit and its accompanying circumstances. This is also readable in the artwork.<\/p>\n

To recycle the found knitwear, Patricia unravelled it. The process of unravelling wool garments was in the past a common task. It allowed to repair socks, enlarge pullovers or even to reuse the material to make new scarfs, gloves or anything else in need. Since the artist wanted to create a ball of wool, she worked the unravelled wool with a French knitting bobbin. To make the 2.587-meter-long cord, it took her over 943 days. With this manual work, she has done the opposite to the industrial production process, which is designed to have the highest possible outcome in as short time as possible to have the highest profit conceivable. In consequence, the industrial working conditions are bad, particularly in states without organised workers, where the exploitation is most abusive. Here one could speak about forms of modern slavery, where the most affected section of the population are women and children.<\/p>\n

Hence, the design of the coloured ball of wool: it reminds a ball for children to play with. The sad truth is that probably the production of the wool and its processing has been made by minors, at least in parts. Therefore, \u201cExpiation\u201d also refers to child labour. However, for Patricia the interpretation of her ball of wool as children\u2019s toy is a sign of hope to correct industrial working conditions to allow children to play, learn and obtain their own independent personality. Herewith, \u201cExpiation\u201d is \u201ca metaphor for sustainable social reconstruction\u201d.1<\/p>\n

Moreover, Patricia wants to draw our attention to the fact that the textile industry is one of the most polluting industries in the world. Besides the increasing use of synthetic fibres and the noxious production process, the offer and demand of short-lived fashion, our purchasing behaviour and throwaway mentality are part of it. It\u2019s time to think about that and change our attitudes to expiate.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Patricia Jacomella Bonola<\/strong><\/p>\n

Born in 1952 in Geneva, Switzerland Patricia Jacomella Bonola made a Master in Fashion Design in 1974 at the Istituto Marangoni<\/a><\/span> in Milan, Italy and later the Master of Fine Arts at the Accademia di Belle Arti Brera<\/a><\/span>, also in Milan. Afterwards, she participated in the After-Degree Program at the Istituto Statale d\u2019Arte in Urbino and the research program of the Istituto Internazionale di Grafica<\/a><\/span> in Venice.<\/p>\n

From 1991 to 2011 Patricia formed the artist duo J & W Management Consulting with Maria Walther. The name was an ironic comment on the capitalisation of the art market. Correspondingly, the two artists wanted to advance new intercultural forms of trade and investment with their interventions. Performances and installations pointed at the inequality of artistic outcome of the art-market, depending on the region of production. However, the actions not only increased the awareness of the problem, but supported artists in the third world or immigrants from there. Moreover, they questioned the value of artworks and phenomena of the society.<\/p>\n

Also in her solo carrier, Patricia deals with social-critical themes such as environmental pollution, economic mismatches, migration, globalisation and parallel realities. Hereby, she explores different materials and media to create installations, performances and participative art events. One example for her value criticism is her sculpture \u201cExpiation\u201d from 2020. With an oversized ball of wool, she points to short-lived fashion and its global consequences. \u201cExpiation\u201d is our Artwork of the Month \/ February 2025. Her video installation \u201cAu Coucher du soleil\u201d (2018) focusses on globalisation, too. Even though the title implies a romantic sunset, the video of the same name \u2013 our artwork of the month May 2020<\/a><\/span> \u2013 is turned on a container ship.<\/p>\n

During her long artistic practice, Patricia had numerous solo exhibitions and participated in many group shows, mainly in Switzerland, but also in Germany, Italy, Turkey and United States. Her artworks are part of public and private collections. She won several prizes, for example the \u201cPro Helvetia Cahiers d\u2019artistes<\/a><\/span>\u201d. Moreover, she was awarded with working grants and had residencies in New York, Berlin, Paris and Cairo. Beside her artistic activities, she was in charge of the Visual arts association Switzerland<\/a><\/span> and member of the editorial board of the Art magazine \u201cSchweizer Kunst\u201d (Swiss Art). Currently, she is jury member for the Apexart Open Call NYC Exhibition<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n

At the moment, there are three exhibitions scheduled for 2025: the group exhibition “AIMAGINE – Photographie et imagine g\u00e9n\u00e9rative<\/a><\/span>” in the Hangar Art-Centre Brussels (24th January – 15th June), “Circolare – Kunst im Kreislauf” in the K\u00fcnstlerhaus S11 Solothurn<\/a><\/span> (21st February – 15th March) and \u201cHere and Now\u201d in the Shedhalle Zug (7th – 16th March).<\/p>\n

Patricia lives and works in Zug, Switzerland.<\/p>\n

www.patriciajacomella.com<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Expiation Patricia Jacomella Bonola 2020 Wool object \u00d8 80 cm \u201cExpiation\u201d by Patricia Jacomella Bonola is a huge multi-coloured ball of wool. The oversized object has a diameter of 80 cm and the thread is accordingly thick. Only the end of the tread reveals that the most visible thread is composed by a thinner one…. (read more<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15287,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[2090,4061,9,4070,4078,4068,4073,10,4086,4077,4083,4071,4087,4072,4084,2476,4080,4085,4075,4088,4081,4079,296,4074,4082,4076,4069],"class_list":["post-15286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artwork-of-the-month","tag-2090","tag-4061","tag-artwork-of-the-month","tag-ball-of-wool","tag-child-labour","tag-expiation","tag-fast-fashion-stores","tag-february","tag-hangar-art-centre-brussels","tag-industrial-working-conditions","tag-j-w-management-consulting","tag-knitwear","tag-kunstlerhaus-s11-solothurn","tag-landfills","tag-maria-walther","tag-patricia-jacomella-bonola","tag-pollution","tag-pro-helvetia-cahiers-dartistes","tag-rubbish","tag-shedhalle-zug","tag-short-lived-fashion","tag-sustainable-social-reconstruction","tag-switzerland","tag-textiles","tag-throwaway-mentality","tag-unravelling","tag-wool-object"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artificialis.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artificialis.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artificialis.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artificialis.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artificialis.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15286"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artificialis.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15286\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artificialis.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artificialis.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artificialis.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artificialis.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}