Galleria Tiziana Di Caro will be hosting the second exhibition in its spaces by Teresa Gargiulo (Vico Equense, 1996) entitled Centodieci tessere per un mosaico potenzialmente infinito [One Hundred and Ten Tiles for a Potentially Infinite Mosaic], opening on Thursday 20 April 2023 at 19.00.

Two years after her first solo exhibition, entitled Come disegnare un’isola [How To Draw an Island], Teresa Gargiulo is back to the gallery to present a new body of works conceived exclusively for this exhibition: drawings (from the Embroidering Spaces, Erasing Forms series, some of which already exhibited at the latest Artissima event in Turin), textile works and a deck of ‘tarot cards.’

Gargiulo’s practice unfolds through language (written and spoken) and her research takes on a slant that we could define as ‘scientific’: the distribution of words that populate the artist’s works, in fact, is based on calculations from which mental images are determined by specific sequences. Nothing in Teresa Gargiulo’s works is casual.

Over the last few months, the artist has collected words to then draw them: she has been putting several together with the intention of shaking up their everyday life. This action comes from the idea that words get increasingly thrown around without putting thought into them, thus making it necessary to put them back in the right place, combining them according to real sense, strength and effectiveness.

The letters are chosen from notebooks written by the artist when she was at elementary school and are selected according to their shape, their appearance, their aesthetic code. Each letter is thus associated with another because of a certain coherence and harmony. The word therefore becomes the vehicle of an ethical and at the same time aesthetic message.

Words, phrases, ideas are not written but drawn or, sometimes, stitched on fabric.

La bravura dell'incastro [The Skill of Joining], Presagio di magia [Presage of Magic], La manipolazione dello splendore [The Manipulation of Splendor], Il pretesto per disfare [The Pretext to Undo] are only a few of the exclusive phrases prepared and organized by Gargiulo for her works. These are thoughts that she collects in the context of her everyday life, yet starting from an assumption: words are polysemous, so one can bend their meaning according to one’s needs. Each word also retains its own value which remains subjective, although it is still necessary to think of language as a free and at the same time conscious system.

 The title of the exhibition Centodieci tessere per un mosaico potenzialmente infinito refers to the last work on display: a deck of cards in which the traditional iconography of the tarot is replaced by words, this time single. And as in the traditional deck, here too we have fourteen adverbs, fourteen adjectives, fourteen nouns and fourteen verbs that correspond to the minor arcana, and twenty-two abstract nouns that correspond to the major arcana. All of this to complete a playful, casual action, potentially meaningless yet crossed by an ultra-expository dimension. The reading of these tarot cards will be the focus of a performance that the artist will carry out starting at 8.00 pm. The choice of tarot cards corresponds to the selection of words, words and more words which, put together, will tell something about the present or perhaps the future of those who play the game.

 But is it really be a game?

 Teresa Gargiulo was born in Vico Equense (NA) in 1996. Graduated in painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Naples, she is the winner of the JaguArt 2020 award, organized by Artissima and Jaguar Land Rover and dedicated to research for young talents.

 She currently lives and works in Meta di Sorrento (NA).