ART RESIDENCIES

Art residencies

Il Bisonte offers the opportunity to artists to work independently in their studios, allowing them to immerse themselves in the unique atmosphere of an historic print studio within walking distance of the most important monuments of Florence.
Founded in 1959 as an art print publisher, Il Bisonte has seen internationally renowned artists working in its ateliers, such as Carrà, Soffici, Capogrossi, Scanavino, Picasso, Moore, Lipchitz, Tamayo, Sutherland, Chadwich, Calder and many others. In order to continue the path traced by these artists, and in constant hybridization between tradition and innovation, the residencies are aimed to promote contemporary art, with regard to the research and experimentation of new languages related to print media. 

How to access

Artists, students or engraving teachers can access the residency program through self-application or applying to an open call.
Their projects will be presented to the scientific Committee of the foundation, who will choose who to accept.
Unless specifically stated in the Call, artists will have access to the studios through the payment of a fee: 250 € per week / includes utilization of the studios monday to friday, 9AM – 18PM, technical and curatorial assistance. Consumable materials not included. Printing edition / price on demand.
CALL FOR ARTISTS

THOMAS WOOD ARTIST RESIDENCIES 2024

Il Bisonte Foundation, thanks to the donation from the family of the American artist Thomas Wood, offers the opportunity to 3 artists born or resident in the United States, to carry out a three-month residency in the Bisonte’s printmaking studios, allowing them to immerse themselves in the unique atmosphere of an historic print studio in Florence.

The 3 selected artists are entitled to:
Award of €1000 per artist (the fee must be subtracted by 30% taxation according to Italian law)
€200 in materials (plates, paper, ink etc)
• Open and free access (not individual) to the printmaking studios, use of the equipment and common areas
• Personalized program, based on the specific artistic research.
• Technical and curatorial assistance from members of the Foundation’s staff throughout the period.
• Administrative assistance in applying for residence permits.

NEW EXPIRATION DATE!
Download the open call and apply by 5th November 2023

Open Call Thomas Wood Artist Residencies 2024

What we offer

The residences are aimed at promoting contemporary art, in particular with regard to the research and experimentation of new languages related to printmaking.
The artist will work closely with the teachers and the curator of the Foundation within individual and personalized program and will produce a corpus of artworks.
During the period of residence the artists will be invited to share their work with the students of the school and with the public through seminars, talks and open studio, in order to give visitors the opportunity to understand the print media art starting from the observation of the creative process.

The workspace

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The artists

2022
Johny Ngbwa
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Paola Lucrezi
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Veliko Marinchevski
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2021
Marta Abbott
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She was born in Amsterdam and grew up in Connecticut and Prague. She lived in New York City before settling in Rome, Italy. Her fascination with the natural world has always influenced her work in the style, the topics and the means she chooses. Working mainly on paper, its materials include handmade inks and organic, often botanical materials. Marta tries to record personally, embrace the materiality of both her subject and her medium and communicate her effort to understand the human experience of nature and beauty. Marta’s work at the Fondazione Il Bisonte involves research and experimentation with materials and techniques. With the help of Luis Pardo, part of her process consisted in studying the use of marble powder as a basis for printing ink. This, in turn, led her to work with other organic materials as a tool for marking. In this case, she used encaustics to create a print of flowers collected on the slab as a record of a very specific time and place and then created a print from the shapes, traces and textures they left behind.

Matheus Chiaratti
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His production is influenced by literature, art history, and autobiography mixed with self-fiction. He uses different media for his productions ranging from painting, to sculpture, from writing to audio, to interventions in the city. He began exhibiting in 2013 with a solo exhibition entitled “Delta libro” in Buenos Aires, continuing his exhibition activity by participating in personal and collective. In 2020 he exhibited in the group exhibition “Transatlantico” at Mana Contemporary in New Jersey in the United States, while the solo show “Rivolvita” was on display at Galerie21 in Livorno. During his residency at Villa Lena Foundation he made a color engraving at the international school of printmaking Il Bisonte in Florence. The work recreates the cover of the notebook “Lunch Poems”, by the poet Frank O’Hara to whom he was inspired during the period of his residence in Tuscany.

Patricia Cordoba

She is an artist who has lived between Mexico and Italy since 1998. Her artistic research has made her live in several cities of the world including Boston, Beijing and Istanbul. In this journey, through the chalcographic and lithographic techniques and his works on paper, she created a dialogue with the alchemical processes that participate in an idea. Her works have been exhibited internationally: Suyama Space in Washington State, Galleria Tornabuoni Pietrasanta, Italy, Museo Marino Marini, Florence, Italy, Museo dela Estampa, Mexico City, 2010 International Lithography Symposium Tidalhom, Sweden, Kunstmusuem of Bern, Switzerland and Sonsuzşükran in Anatolia, Turkey. Today some of her works belong to museum collections such as the Kunstmuseum Bern, The British Museum, London, The National Institute of Graphics, Rome, The IberoAmerikanisches Institut Berlin and the National Gallery Australia in Canberra.

Federica Rugnone
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She studied between Bologna and Florence, where she obtained her master’s degree in philosophical sciences, dealing with central themes in her artistic research: perception, body and space. In parallel with his classical studies, she is interested in photography by following the courses of the Fondazione Studio Marangoni and printmaking at the Fondazione il Bisonte. She has exhibited in contexts such as Studio 38 Contemporary art gallery (“Human Nature”, solo exhibition curated by Silvia Bellotti and Erica Romano, Pistoia, 2019), Arte in arti e mestieri (curated by Mauro Carrera at the Fondazione Scuola di Arti e Mestieri “F. Bertazzoni”, Suzzara 2019), LDM art gallery (“Ghosting” group exhibition curated by Silvia Bellotti and Erica Romano, Florence, 2019), Camera Work (group exhibition “Quaderni di viaggio” curated by Monica Bulaj, Palazzo Rasponi 2, Ravenna, 2018), sifest Savignano sul Rubicone (“Strategie Dialettiche”, collective exhibition curated by Thomas Maggioli, 2017), F-Light festival (“Fotografare la luce”, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence 2016) etc. Currently in residence at the Fondazione Il Bisonte, international center of graphic art (Florence) where she also held workshops on experimental techniques between engraving and photography.

2020
Thomas Wood

American engraver and painter. Wood’s various works range from dreamlike fantasies to naturalistic views: his imagination plays with allegorical compositions and scenes of lush landscapes materializing surreal worlds. The artist combines the technical virtuosity of the traditional press with his purely subjective point of view, passing easily from meditative to symbolist, from naturalist to surrealist, from aesthetic to ironic.

Wood’s works are included in countless private collections and institutions such as the Tacoma Art Museum, Microsoft, the University of Washington Medical Center, the Whatcom Museum of Art and History and the Museum of Northwest Art and has exhibited his works in national and international exhibitions, also at our Foundation.

Sergey Chubirko

A graphic artist and painter, he was born in Ukraine in 1969 and trained in Russia, at the Institute of Fine Arts of Ilya Repin in Saint Petersburg, where he particularly distinguished himself in drawing. He currently lives and works in Italy. Here, among the most important works, he made a series of portraits of the clergy of Vatican City, including the portrait of Pope Benedict XVI. Not by chance, in the personal and professional life of the artist, Ukraine, Russia and Italy are deeply linked as a source of inspiration and constant artistic reflection on man, life and time. Sergey Chubirko’s art is mainly focused on biblical themes and traditional motifs that he reinterprets and proposes with great originality. The artistic heritage of the past is for him not only a point of reflection, but a living foundation of his own coordinate system. These coordinates, in an aesthetic and technical sense, have always been for Sergey Chubirko the work of Pieter Breugel and Albrecht Dürer, Andrea Del Sarto and Pontormo; finally the masters of Soviet realism Aleksandr Deineka and Gelij Koržev.

Francesca Katerina Pieraccini

Born in Florence but Livorno by adoption, Francesca (Katerina) Pieraccini after studying at the Faculty of Architecture in Florence, began the profession of Interior Designer interrupted in 2004 for the growing interest in the art of ceramics.
In 2009, she received a European Scholarship, for the qualification of Ceramista, at the Società Empolese Valdelsa:

In 2011 she was selected by the Company A.C.F of Sesto Fiorentino for the realization of Tuscan Landscapes for Russia, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates. In the following years she will participate in various competitions and will create ceramic products on commission for important Italian companies. From 2012 she began to approach the pictorial arts and held various courses for adults and children. In 2016 she founded the artistic and cultural movement T O S C A N I M A L E D E T T I, which debuted at the Loggia delle Arti in Bagno di Romagna Terme with an investigation on the relationship between the arts all, crafts, the rhythms and sustainability of life, the environment, social relations.

2019
Michael Goro

My story is a vivid illustration of the end of the last century – a period of deconstruction, discontinuity and dislocation. My artistic practice is a continuous creative quest for raw authenticity in urban environments and constantly changing human forms. Individuals change as they experience life and cities develop and /or decay over time. People and places have history and experience. Cities are altered by time and use, assuming the personality of the people and the elements that have interacted with them. It’s a combination of all these factors that creates authenticity. Looking for topics, I find simple things that we see every day, things that become symbolic once extracted from the context. I experience the juxtaposition of places, faces and architectural projects that reflect my different personal experiences.

Matteo Giuntini

Born in Livorno in 1977. His language moves easily between painting, drawing and illustration.
In 2005 in Florence he began his professional career, Molte le mostre sia personali che collettive. He has collaborated with fashion houses and companies. In 2014, for Mc Cann World Group and Poste Italiane, he illustrated the historic calendar while in 2017 the fashion house Valentino commissioned him to create illustrations for the brand.

Sofia Paravicini

Freelance illustrator based in Milan. After studying art painting at Camberwell College of Arts in London, she earned a Master in Editorial Illustration at MiMaster in Milan. Since 2016 she has worked as a freelance illustrator and collaborates with the Wurmkos Foundation, an open place, intended as the experience that connects art and psychic problems. At the beginning of 2018 she published his first illustrated book for Nord-Sud Edizioni and in October a second book will be published for Salani Edizioni.

2018
Tuono Pettinato

He began to publish self-produced comics while attending DAMS during the first half of the 2000s. Since 2005 he has been collaborating with the Campanila publishing house, illustrating various children’s books. Together with cartoonists Ratigher, LRNZ, Dr. Pira and Maicol & Mirco he created the collective Super Friends, with which he published the magazines Hobby Comics and Pic Nic. Since 2013 he has collaborated with the website Fumettologica, for which he edited the column Tippy Tuesday. In 2014 he was awarded as “Best Unique Author” at Lucca Comics & Games.

He has also collaborated with the magazines XL, Animals and Linus. His style is an oxymoron that combines a light and caricatural trait to busy topics treated with irreverent sarcasm.

Giordano Poloni

Born in 1980 and living in Milan, he graduated in Cinema in 2006. The same year he began his career as an illustrator for clients such as The Guardian, Scientific American Magazine, The New Scientist , Random House Australia, Wired UK, TIM Mobile. Inspired by his huge collection of comics, music videos, films and photo books, he creates digital artworks and brings with him his Italian cultural heritage.

2017
Giorgia Oldano

After graduating in Painting at the Albertina Academy of Fine Arts in Turin, she moved to Milan, taking her studio with her: La Tana. Giorgia found in painting the best way to express herself, to excite, but also to witness what is slowly dissolving in nature. The protagonists of her paintings are the animals portrayed in order to enhance their gaze. In 2012 she won the absolute prize of Italian Champion of Naturalistic Design, which will lead her to live a unique experience in Africa, between Malawi and Zambia. In 2013 she was awarded as International Artist in the category Mammals, contest BBC Wildlife Artist of the Year 2013 in England. In 2013, 2014, and 2016, she was selected to exhibit at the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum for the prestigious annual BIRDS IN ART exhibition in central Wisconsin.

Ima-Abasi Okon

She is a London artist and researcher at the College of Communication in London. Her research is the result of an artistic practice that often involves the combination of analog and digital techniques and creates a very diverse heritage. Recent exhibitions include UNTITLED: Art on the Condition of Our Time, New Art Exchange, Nottingham, UK (2017); In This Soup We Swim, Kingsgate Project Space, London, UK (2016); Changing City: Shifting Places, CCA Lagos, Lagos, Nigeria (2016); Arena, Centre for Contemporary Art, Torun, Poland (2014) and a series of screenings including the Akademie der Künst, Cologne, Germany (2016); Mount Florida Studios, Glasgow, United Kingdom (2016); Kunstmuseum Bonn, Bonn, Germany (2015); Atomic Images, Paris, France (2015).

Eva Jokhova

Born in Switzerland to Russian parents, Evy lived in Soviet and post-Soviet Russia, Austria and Estonia. She currently lives between London and Tallinn. In 2011 she obtained her Master’s Degree in Fine Arts, Royal College of Art in London and in 2013 her Master in Political Communications, at Goldsmiths College. Her multicultural background and exposure to diverse social and political structures form the backbone of her research. Evy is in fact a multidisciplinary artist engaged in the dialogue between social anthropology, architecture, philosophy and art. Her research is conducted by investigations into the relationships between things, the creation of social systems, and how social behavior can be altered through architectural construction. Her projects are often supported by anthropological interventions and interviews.

Oliver - Selim Boualam e Lukas Marstaller

Industrial designers, interior designers and communication Designers: here are the main activities of Oliver Selim Boualam and Lukas Marstaller, two artists living between Germany and Morocco. Since 2013 they have opened their own studio and since then they produce objects, installations and other fruit of their creativity.

Tomas Pineda Matus

After studying in the laboratory of Plastic Arts of the Technological Institute of the Isthmus and attended the Workshop of Plastic Arts Rufino Tamayo, he studied with masters Shinzaburo Takeda, Juan Alcazar, Antonio Perez, Charles Barth and already in the 90’s, he attended several advanced painting courses with Luis Nishazawa, in Guanajuato. It should be noted that he has developed valuable work in the field of graphic design, a discipline in which he teaches at the Mesoamerican University of Oaxaca, Mexico.

Ixrael Montes

He attended the Oaxaca School of Fine Arts, graduating in Plastic Arts. In 1996 he attended courses in engraving at the Rufino Tamayo Workshop in Oaxaca. It has several individual exhibitions, including: 2013 “Subjetividad de Origen”, at the Cultural Center of the UABJO, Oaxaca, 2012 “Montes en la Vista”, at the Golf Club, Puebla, Puebla. He has exhibited in individual and collective exhibitions between Mexico and other countries. The collections of Ixrael Montes are located in the Museum of Contemporary Art, Mexico City; The Institute of Graphic Arts of Oaxaca, Oaxaca, Oaxaca; The University Autónoma Benito Juárez, Oaxaca; Museum of Fine Arts of Brownsville, Texas, USA. And the Museum of the University Casa de los Muñecos, Puebla, Puebla.

Rolando Rojas

More and more present internationally, Rolando Rojas embraces, in his art, various techniques: sculpture, engraving, ceramics, collage, painting and watercolor. He has five solo exhibitions around the world and more than sixty collective exhibitions. His works are currently on permanent display at the “Serrano” gallery in Houston, Texas. Of his work 4 books have been published where are collected all the graphic works that he has done in his career.

Saul Castro

His artistic training consists of two phases: his studies at the School of Fine Arts of the University of Benito Juárez de Oaxaca and, secondly, his apprenticeship at the Laboratory of Plastic Arts Rufino Tamayo. In 1999 he founded art center SACHMO. In his career as an illustrator, painter, sculptor and engraver he exhibited in several cities of the Mexican Republic.

Alejandro Martinez

Artist and teacher, he teaches at the Universidad Mesoamericana and Blaise Pascale Preparatory School. His teaching subjects are graphic design, drawing and art printing.At the base of his work there are pigments derived from cochineal, a natural dye derived from the cactus parasite. As for his art, many of Martínez’s more recent works feature beautiful trees with ample foliage representing family and fatherhood. He has over twenty exhibitions, both collective and personal, only in Mexico.

Didier Mayes

Master Didier Mayés presents a pictorial proposal based on abstraction, on the fundamental considered figures that are transformed and play on every canvas, allowing you to live an experience of exploration and contemplation of the world of colors to anyone who appreciates his work. Didier began exhibiting in 1993 in group exhibitions while his first solo show was held in San Francisco in 1997. and question violence, disasters and machist stereotypes. He has held sixteen solo exhibitions and many group exhibitions, mainly in Great Britain, the United States and Switzerland. He has received awards and recognitions and has been invited to give public lectures at various English universities. He has participated in artist residencies in Australia and Italy.

2016
Andrew DeCaen

Since 2007, he has been Associate Professor of Art and Coordinator of the Art Graphics section at the University of North Texas College of Visual Arts and Design. His engravings, drawings and paper sculptures have been exhibited in the United States, Argentina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Colombia, Denmark, England, Finland, Japan, Korea, Italy, Romania and Turkey. His work has been featured in publications such as Drawing magazine and 500 Paper Object. His works include New Prints Winter 2016 and International Print Center of New York, Drawing Lines Across Mediums at the Brooklyn Site, Stand Out Prints at the Highpoint Center for Printmaking in Menapolis, and Litho Kielce 2015 International Competition at the BWA Gallery in Kielce, Poland.

Caterina Margherita

Born in London in 1979, she graduated in sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice, where she lives and works. She began exhibiting in 2006 and has created, on behalf of the City of Florence, a folder of engravings entitled “My Arno” that will be exhibited in the headquarters of the district 2 of Florence on the occasion of the celebrations for the 50 years of the flood in Florence.

Shirin Salehi

Iranian by birth and spanish by adoption, Shirin Salehi began to practice art graphics in 2009 after training as an engineer and since 2013 has her own engraving workshop in Madrid. She works on different media, painting, drawing, engraving, artist books
The works that accompany her artistic journey are born from a deep emotional need for communication through storytelling.

Konstantin Trubkovich

Born in Moscow in 1979, he lives and works in New York. He exhibited for the first time in the group exhibition Camera Works in New York while his first solo show was in 2007 in London. He works on a wide range of media: painting, drawing, photography, sculpture, multimedia creations that have allowed him to develop a unique visual vocabulary to explore his own history and the most universal aesthetic of memory.

Pavlo Makov

He received his artistic training at the Department of Painting of the Crimean Art College (1974-79) and later at the Academy of Fine Arts of St. Petersburg (1977-78) and at the Graphics Department of Kharkiv, Ukraine. He has been a member of the Union of Ukrainian Artists since 1988 and has been a member of the Royale Society of British Painters since 1994. He has many exhibitions, solo and group, and his works are part of important museums and public collections.

Craig Fisher

Born in Joahnnesburg on September 1976. Fisher paints and performs sculptural installations using various fabrics and textile techniques to represent and question violence, disasters and machismo.
He has held sixteen solo exhibitions and many group exhibitions, mainly in Great Britain, the United States and Switzerland. He has received awards and recognitions and has been invited to give public lectures at various English universities. He has participated in artist residencies in Australia and Italy.

2015
Moataz Nasr

A multifaceted Egyptian artist who built his art, today appreciated all over the world, on the connections between his culture and the West. His art, which exploits the most disparate materials, is a constant reflection on what he lives and what he sees.
Since 1995 he has exhibited his works in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Egypt, Italy, France, Norway, China, Sweden, Great Britain, Kuwait, Jordan, United Arab Emirates, Germany, Denmark, Belgium, Vietnam, Turkey, Senegal, Brazil, Australia.

Public installations can be seen at the Sculpture Park “Al Maden” in Marrakech, at the Macro in Rome, in Cairo and at the Crystal Museum in Colle Val d’Elsa.

Erman Özbaşaran

Erman’s work is located on the margins of the more rigid tradition of engraving, the periphery of technology where he manages to move easily exploring social and urban issues demonstrating deep sensitivity and desire for investigation.
Among his previous exhibitions: International Student Triennial M.Ü.G.S.F. Istanbul / Turkey; Shaman Diary Project 4L, Istanbul; “The new recommendations-new propositions” Exhibition Borusan Art Gallery, Istanbul; “Young Artist of the Year” contest exhibition Ancient Art Gallery, Istanbul; Open Studios, School of Visual Arts Summer Residency Program, New York; Metabolite” exhibition, Gallery 44/A, Istanbul.

Alan Reid

His works invite reasoning, provocation and negotiation of absurd scenarios involving rich and bored women portrayed in tasteless situations.
He started exhibiting in 2001. Recent solo exhibitions include “An Absent Monument” in Glasgow; Patricia Low Contemporary, Gstaad; Lisa Cooley, New York; and “A Palazzo” in Brescia. He curated the exhibition “Air de Pied-à-terre” in January 2013. His work is in the permanent collection of the Bronx Museum of Arts. Reid was included in the second edition of “Phaidon vitamin D”.

Lola Montes Schnabel

Painter, sculptor, photographer, director, actress, daughter of one of the greatest living painters, Julian Schnabel, and the American designer Jacqueline Beaurang, she has breathed since childhood love for art and all creative forms. Lola is an eclectic artist who already has several exhibitions in the United States. For her to make art is like consecrating herself to someone, activating a dialogue with those who died and with whom she must come.

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