Cecilia Granara
An Italian artist born in Saudi Arabia, Cecilia Granara has lived in various countries around the world. Inspired by her exposure to multinational environments from a young age, her paintings of fantastical worlds narrate her many experiences and personal interpretations of the world. Through ethereal palettes and imagined characters, the viewer is given a glimpse into her own sensational vision.
Photo courtesy of Roberto Marossi.
About:
Cecilia Granara was born in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia in 1991. Having diplomat parents, Cecilia travelled around the world at a very young age living in countries such as Italy, Mexico, and the USA. She pursued her artistic career by receiving a BA in Fine Art with mention of Honours from Central St Martin’s College of Art and Design in 2013, and an MFA from the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris. She received a scholarship to pursue part of her MFA studies at Hunter College, New York City.
Drawing as a child was a natural activity for Granara. Her grandmother later taught her how to draw more carefully. The artist feels lucky and thankful to have had various art teachers at a young age that would value art as much as any other subject. As a teenager, the famous Phaidon guide Vitamin P books helped her realise that painters were alive outside of canonical Art History books. Having started depicting women in portraits as a child, Granara sees her artistic practice as a way of transcribing what she sees. Her creations become a necessary and urgent means of digesting what is happening around her. Artistic creation becomes a fantastical personal diary.
When painting, Granara enjoys employing many different techniques and mediums. When an impulse to note something down arises, the artist turns to watercolours and inks on paper in order to note it as fast as possible. When building up images, the artist uses oil paint on cotton, linen, and wooden canvases, often making her own paint by mixing pigments which help her achieve impact from more intense colours.
Cecilia Granara, Brittle Star (RELEASE), 2022. Acrylic, gouache, and ink on canvas, 160 x 130 cm. Photo courtesy of Sapling Gallery.
When I Touch Your Face, 2022. Acrylic and oil on canvas, 18 x 13.5 cm. Photo courtesy of Sapling Gallery.
Cecilia Granara, When I Touch Your Face I Feel Infinite Love, 2022. Acrylic, gouache, and ink on canvas, 160 x 130 cm. Photo courtesy of Sapling Gallery.
Granara tries not to label what she is painting while she is doing it. Painting puts her in a unique state of connection with her thoughts and emotions, and she enjoys it when a finished painting surprises her–accepting the lack of rational explanation of what a painting may mean or the themes it explores. As a ritual surrounding her works, she writes texts and notes while she paints. The element of writing in her practice can help the comprehension of her artworks, so Granara accompanies all her works with poetry and novels which assist her in understanding what she has created.
Recurring themes one may notice in the artist’s works are metaphorical births, bodily fluids, digestion, and the body going through changes. As the artist identifies as a woman, the work can be seen as an extension or strange mirror that reflects the body she carries. The influence of the nude while studying art subconsciously directed the artist toward these subjects. The naked women depicted reflect the vulnerable position of the female gender in the world. In her fantastical paintings, Granara wishes to depict these women in a safe environment–a utopian world where her characters are powerful and sheltered.
Cecilia Granara, NLWG (No Love Without Grief), 2022. Acrylic, airbrush and oil on canvas, 200 x 300 cm. Courtesy of Cassina Projects.
Granara’s influences vary, as she is not inspired by a single artist but by a mix of many. As the years go by, her influences change and new painters guide her creations, each artist giving her precious lessons. Miriam Cahn helped her to accept that one can paint difficult feelings, Francesco Clemente’s natural relation to poetry and images inspired her own artistic research, and other painters such as Cy Twombly and his powerful emotions and raw feelings transmitted through his brushstrokes are of notable mention.
Among the shows that marked Granara’s career and artistic creation was Je Suis Avant, Je Suis Presque, Je Suis Jamais curated by Ekaterina Shcherbakova at Parc Saint Léger in Pougues-les-Eaux. For this show, the institution financed the production of an 11-metre mural painting depicting two snakes biting their own tails and ending in two women's heads.
Her largest painting was realised on the occasion of the group exhibition Entre tes yeux et les images que j'y vois (un choix sentimental) curated by Anaël Pigeat and Sophie Vigourous at the Fondation d’entreprise Pernod Ricard in Paris. The show aims to present a generational discourse between nine artists who share a friendship with one another. The artist presented the triptych Lignes de Vie, an artwork portraying the relationship between memories, sexuality, colour, and symbols.
Lignes de Vie, 2022. Acrylic, ink and oil on canvas, 330 cm x 180 cm. Photo courtesy of the artist.
Detail of Lignes de Vie.
“Institutional shows, like the one I did at Parc Saint Léger thanks to Ekaterina, are special opportunities for artists to play with spaces that don’t have the commercial pressure to sell. They become playgrounds. Playing with no end result is so important, it’s the space where the deepest images and emotions that we are maybe ashamed of or want to hide come to the surface. And that is, in the end, what attracts me to art: making visible the things we want to hide. It says a lot about our society. It’s both a frontal and peripheral way to talk about the ugly and magical qualities of human nature.”
Granara’s works will soon be exhibited in a new group show at Passerelle, the Contemporary Arts Centre of Brest, France. À Fleur de Peau, opening in June, will show the reaction of artists living in the city and the intensity of architectural, social, and personal relationships. Granara will present a diptych with surfacing motifs of intense bodily reactions such as vomiting, a recurrent theme in Granara’s paintings pushing these impulsive reactions of the body.
Cecilia Granara, Breathing You, Feeling You, 2021. Pigments, Sand and Acrylic on linen, 180 x 300 cm. Photo courtesy of the artist.
Cecilia Granara, Coming apart/into pieces/is beautiful/and painful, 2020. Mixed media on canvas, 200 x 170 cm. Photo courtesy of Exo Exo.
Upcoming Projects:
2022
Premio Cairo, Palais Royal, Milan
Group show, Cassina Projects, Milan
Group show, cur. Loïc LeGall, CAC Passerelle
Group show, 40 ans du LAAC, Dunkerque
Cassina Project Residency, Italy
Two Hotel Residency, Brasil
Terapeia Residency, Greece
Solo Exhibitions:
2022
Brittle Stars, Sapling Gallery, London
2021
0 ∞ 21, Exo Exo, Paris
2020
Lasciare Entrare, Lasciare Andare, Studiolo Project, Milan
2019
Quatre Coeurs, Exo Exo, Paris
The Whole World Weeping, MFA Hunter College Galleries, New York
Group Exhibitions:
2022
Entre tes yeux et les images que j’y vois, cur. Anaël Pigeat, Sophie Vigourous, Fondation Ricard, Paris
Féminin Plurielles, La Coopérative - Musée Cérès Franco, Montolieu
2021
A fleur de boue, Double Séjour, Clichy
Canons, cur. Bettina Maillard & Marion Coindeau, Galerie Derouillon, Paris
L’ écume des songes, cur. Hervé Mikaelof, Yvannoé Kruger, Elise Roche, Art Paris - Poush Manifesto
2020
Green Go Home, cur. Rirkrit Tirvanija & Tomas Vu, Hua International, Berlin
Preparation, cur. Important Magazine, Brigade Gallery, Copenhagen
Je suis avant, je suis presque, je suis jamais, cur. Ekaterina Shcherbakova, Parc Saint Léger, Pougues-les-Eaux
Amies, Muses, Artistes, cur. Rodica Seward, Maison Tajan, Paris
Masculinités, cur. Tomas Havet, Le Sept Elzevir, Paris
Your Friends and Neighbours, High Art, Paris
SO CLOSE, cur. Guido Romero Pierini, Galerie Joseph, Paris
(Un)Real Life, cur. Nicolas Dewavrin, Galeria Nueva, Madrid
The Independent Summit: Friendship, Solidarity, Alliances, cur. Giulia Ferracci, Elena Motisi and Valerio Del Baglivo, MAXXI, Rome
2019
Flesh and Bone, cur. Loïc le Gall, PS120, Berlin
Nous qui Désirons Sans Fin, cur. Marion Bataillard, Fondation Fiminco, Romainville
On view, cur. Henri Guette, La Vitrine, Paris
Mais pas du tout, c’est platement fguratif! Toi tu est spirituelle mon amour, cur. Anael Pigeat et Sophie Vigourous,
Galerie Jousse Entreprise, Paris
Nothing Happens/Everything matters, cur. Nathanaelle Herbelin, Onzième lieu, Paris
Awards and Grants:
2021
Nominated for Cairo Prize
2019
Prix Antoine Marin, nommée par Hervé Di Rosa
Bourse Erasmus, MFA exchange, Hunter College, New York
Beatrice Dalmasso
Emerging Artists Co-Editor, MADE IN BED