Premio Combat Prize

Born in Rome in 1979, where she graduated in Political Science, while practicing as self-taught painter. She got a Master degree in International Relations in Rome and later, she spent two years in Milan, working for a multinational company. There, she continued her artistic practice.
In 2008 she moved to China, where she attended the Advanced course of oil painting at the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts. She lives and works in London.
Group Exhibitions
2013, Emozionarti, Domus Talenti, Rome.
2013, Il sapere creativo, Idearte Gallery, Ferrara, Italy.
2012-2013, Ten paths to the future, Imago Art Gallery, London
2012, Utopia del sembiante, Meseo del Paesaggio, Torre di mosto, Venezia.
2011, In the East, Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts Museum, Guangzhou, China.
2011, I Coloristi, S. Gregorio Armeno, Forum Universale delle Culture, Napoli.
2011, Frammenti di storie fra la storia, Museo Storico della Fanteria, Roma.
2011, Portraits, Galleria Vista, Rome.
2011, I colori dell`anima, Chiesa di Santa Maria delle Periclitanti, Napoli.
Two person exhibition
2011, I see, Chen ZiJun/Valentina Furgani, Spot Art Gallery, Guangzhou, China
Bibliography
Platinum, 我行• 我见, January, 2012.
Utopia del sembiante, a cura di Stefano Cecchetto, Edizioni Colorama, 2012.
In the East, University City Art Museum of Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, 2011.
Statement on latex painting
My research started one year ago, when I was painting a figure using a latex mask on an ink background. As I rubbed the latex mask to cancel it, like I was supposed to do according to the directions of use of that material, I found something extremely fascinating. I realized that the latex mask was full of life, and I decided to leave it there. It was scratched, leaving bright scars and holes on the surface of the figure, making the human represented appear vulnerable. From another point of view, those holes revealed what was under the surface of the figure: a blank space, that was instead full of meaning to me, because the fact that it was under the skin of latex before the cancellation made it a fragment of soul emerging to open sky, or a memory, that is what everyone will become after life.
Moreover the meaning of latex is that, being a membrane, it protects the person portrayed from the outside world, or from another point of view it prevents the figure to communicate by isolating it.
That is why I keep on researching on painting with latex. I found out that Piero Manzoni (Soffio d`artista) and Eva Hesse also used it in sculpture, but so far I don`t know about anybody using latex in painting today. Nonetheless I think that it is a perfect medium to express how the world is today. There are less defined boundaries than before, everything is more fluid, transparent, flexible and porous. But more vulnerable as well.