Carol Rama
| Carol Rama | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
Olga Carolina Rama 17 April 1918 Turin, Italy |
| Died | 25 September 2015 (aged 97) Turin, Italy |
| Education | Self-taught |
| Known for | Painting, bricolage |
Carol Rama (born Olga Carolina Rama; 17 April 1918 – 25 September 2015) was an Italian self-taught artist whose unconventional painting encompassed an erotic, and often sexually aggressive universe populated by characters who present themes of sexual identity with specific references to female sensuality. Her work was relatively little known until curator Lea Vergine included several pieces in a 1980 exhibition, prompting Rama to revisit her earlier watercolour style.
Rama was born in Turin to Marta née Pugliara and bicycle manufacturer Amabile Rama. When she was 15, her mother was admitted to a psychiatric clinic. Her father went bankrupt and committed suicide. As a young unmarried woman in fascist Italy, at 21 years of age, Rama was already creating images that were challenging state censorship. She frequented the salons and studios of Felice Casorati.
Between 1937 and 1945 she often painted portraits, both of friends and self, with simplified flattened depictions, recalling some of the efforts of Amedeo Modigliani. Her first exhibition in 1945 at Galleria Faber was shut down by the Turin police. Her early works were watercolour paintings and beginning in the 1950s she began incorporating objects such as hypodermic syringes and small mechanical parts into her art. In the 1960s, her primary material became strips of rubber from tyres. During the early 1950s, she joined with other abstract artists in the Movimento Arte Concreta torinese, although always maintaining her individual style.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, she had connections with filmmakers Luis Buñuel and Orson Welles as well as the visual artists Man Ray and Andy Warhol.
"I didn't think I had the qualities for becoming an artist," she told SAST Report in a 2005 interview, and continued with describing the view she had of the contemporary art scene: "Beautiful women, prima donnas, beautiful people who speak several different languages, sitting and being charming."
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