Italian-born Bianca Sforni uses the photographic medium to investigate the unlimited potentials of human perception, combining the naturally ephemeral character of the image with its magical qualities. She invites us to examine the caracter of both organic and manmade forms and their seductive and persuasive power.
Originally from Milan, Bianca Sforni (b. 1963) moved to Paris in 1985 to pursue photography at the Met Penninghen School. Her interest lay in examining the seductive character of natural forms and their persuasive power. In 1993, she held her first solo exhibition Oyster Portrait in Paris, and in 1996, she published her first photobook Pandora’s Box. From 1997 to 2004, Sforni stayed and photographed in Los Angeles to capture the glitter of the city’s night scenes – particularly exotic dancers in gentleman’s clubs. As she did with natural subjects earlier, Sforni focused upon the silhouettes of dancers’ carnal beauty in moevement which she rendered them through Ataraxia pigment transfer, an astoundingly archival four-color separation printing process. Together with the surrounding nightscapes, these L.A. images were chronicled as After Dark, as well as published in 2005 into a book of the same title. She later settled in New York and continues to investigate the potential of human perception, combining the naturally ephemeral character of the image with its magical qualities. Her other seminal works include the series of Datura flowers in tightly framed compositions and alluring colors against a dark background.
Her work has been exhibited at Museum of Contemporary Art, Rome (MACRO), Museum of European Photography in Paris (MEP); The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC, Galleria Claudia Gian Ferrari Arte Contemporanea, Galerie Eric Mircher, Marninart Gallery, Washington DC, Paul Kasmin Gallery, New York, and Miyako Yoshinaga Gallery, New York, among other institutions and galleries.