Carla Tolomeo is an anomalous artist in the contemporary arts scene. She was born a painter but her literary acquaintances will mark her throughout her existence and her work; welcomed into De Chirico's studio while still a child she will inherit along with the ability to express herself with sign and color the access to a "different" world of dreamlike visions and great irony. The study of Japanese painting, friendship with Borges will consolidate her choices.

Her works go around the world, she works with major Italian and European galleries.

The creative work is accompanied by the study and research on the life and works of Giacomo Casanova and the chair of engraving at the Brera Academy and Venice.  In 1997 she is invited to London in the Leicester Galleries with a: Homage to Leonardo, this exhibition will mark the transition from painting to the invention of the Chair-sculpture.

She begins to create and exhibit Chairs, an unpredictable turning point in her artistic production. With these creations, a true pretext for cultured amusement, immediately received by the whole world, Carla Tolomeo surprises her collectors. She is invited to Dallas and New York by Neiman Markus, Blumarine wants one of her Chairs in every boutique in the world, Missoni entrusts her with her fabrics, she adorns with 18 pieces the windows of Hermès in Faubourg saint Honoré, le Meurice in Paris hosts her works. She is invited to Belgrade to decorate the Zepter theater, works in Buenos Aires, Uruguay and in Miami guest of a large private design collection. 

As she writes in the presentation of her first catalog dedicated to Chairs-Sculptures, her philosophy consists in a mutation-transformation of the chair from an ordinary object to an art object, starting from the most banal and domestic piece of furniture. The Chair, she writes in a presentation for the event at Hermés in 2001, is self-portrait is telling itself by shuffling the cards. Her Chairs-Sculpture therefore become something magical that harks back to an almost rediscovered childhood, with a hint of the mischief of someone who has lived life intensely (Thank you, for the brief presentation, to Bruno Baglivo of “MIRABILI arte da abitare").

Gabriella Ruggieri for 1blog4u

Visit the Gallery  ph.Vaifro Minoretti 

Useful links:

MIRABILI (IT and EN)https://mirabili.it/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/TOLOMEO-Carla-catalogue-MAI-SEDERSI-SUGLI-ALLORI.pdf

Contini Arte (EN) https://www.continiarte.com/en/artist/carla-tolomeo/

MAMe (IT) https://mam-e.it/intervista-a-carla-tolomeo-vigorelli/

DOL’s Magazine (IT) https://www.dols.it/2017/11/28/carla-tolomeo-vigorelli-la-signora-delle-sedie/