Roberta De Caro

“My investigation starts with materials and objects that spark interest for their formal qualities and their potential in conveying meaning. I often make use of familiar items that are at once collectively recognisable and of personal resonance, existing in everyday life or as childhood memories.

Transformed into physical metaphors, these objects become vehicles to observe the network of deeper associations they unconsciously elicit; my work examines the role they play in shaping our behaviour.
Sculpture is central within my practice, often presented in installations that place it in conversation with works on paper. The emphasis is on process and craft combined with an aesthetic informed by Minimalism and Arte Povera. My multi-disciplinary work ranges from drawings to etchings, from glass to bronze casting and to the use of ready-mades, evidencing the influence of artists such as Mona Hatoum and Robert Gober, as well as a tradition of feminist artists like Louise Bourgeois and Barbara Kruger. My practice also encompasses performance and participatory art projects.
Fuelled by a raw response to socio-political issues, my work interrogates social constructs from a feminist perspective, examining matters of abuse of power and gender inequality within the domestic sphere. The domestic realm is portrayed as an incubator for sets of behaviour that are replicated in wider society. Words often feature in my work as indicator of the power of language in underpinning a gender-biased ideology, making reference to postmodern feminist theory and Roland Barthes’ semiotics.”

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