FRAC Champagne-Ardenne

Viola Leddi, Tocophobia I, 2023. Acrilic on cotton poplin, 65 x 90 cm. Photo Annik

Viola Leddi, Pupille
From October 11th 2024 to January 12th 2025
Exhibition opening October 10th at 6 p.m.
Curator of the exhibition: Marie Griffay

The FRAC Champagne-Ardenne is pleased to present the first solo exhibition in France of the artist Viola Leddi.
Her work questions the power structures visible in the representation of women’s bodies in Italian and Western art, culture and society. Her paintings and sculptures explore the concept of femininity in an attempt to highlight the ambivalent relationship between the coercive process of identifying with certain stereotypes and the desire to subvert them. Her recent work focuses on the notion of gender in horror and gothic films: haunted domestic spaces, insomnia, the duality of death and love, mental disorders and self-narration.

This exhibition at the FRAC brings together brand-new works by Viola Leddi, specially conceived for this invitation, in which the artist explores the etymological definition of the word pupil, in reference to the processes of self-perception in relation to the gaze of others.

Born in Milan in 1993, Viola Leddi lives and works between Milan and Geneva. Viola Leddi graduated in 2022 from the Fine Arts School HEAD - Geneva, after a degree in Fine Arts with a major in painting from the Brera Academy in Milan and a year at the School of Painting of the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen. Recent solo exhibitions include Strategies for Invisibility, VIN VIN Gallery (Naples, 2022); I saw stars turn into dark coals, Pace Gallery (Geneva, 2023); Lovable Creatures, TILE project space (Milan, 2019). She has taken part in several group exhibitions, including Italian Painting Today, Triennale di Milano (Milan, 2023); Madrigale, VIN VIN Vienna (Naples, 2022); From Submersion to Subversion, Palazzina (Basel, 2021). In 2022 she was awarded the Prix de la Fondation Théodore Stravinsky of HEAD - Geneva and the Prix Galerie of HEAD - Geneva, for her solo exhibition at the Pace Gallery. Viola Leddi is represented by VIN VIN Vienna.