Melania Toma is an Italian-born multi-disciplinary artist living and working in London. At the centre of her practice lies the exploration of the concept of emotional energy. Through the relationship between the world of painting, sculpture and textile art, Toma starts a research around the notions of feminine, time, borders and the problematisation around all of these concepts eviscerated by their own emotional energy: thus emptying them of their innermost meaning, we no longer respond to them and they no longer affect us deeply.
Toma’s practice is guided by the use of this combination of mediums – that come from the encounter with raw materials such as wool, clay, terracotta, sand and natural pigments with oil painting, concrete and animal body parts – and believes in the transformative power of the self and in transformation as a means to bring us closer to totality. In an attempt to reconnect with her own primitive fragmented energy, Toma creates a world populated by totem-objects: Arpilleras, Uterus-pumpkins, Homunculi and whatever else is capable of recovering the fracture between rational world and instinctual drives.
In an attempt to reconnect with her own primitive fragmented energy, Toma creates a world populated by totem-objects: Arpilleras, Uterus-pumpkins,Homunculi and whatever else is capable of sending instinctual messages to the rational side to which we are forced to pay attention.