Carol Rama’s Studio: A nucleus of creativity

The area around Carol Rama’s desk, and the items on it, show the extra­or­di­nary breadth of her prac­tice, and just how long she lived and worked. Besides her paint­ings on the surrounding walls, there are paint­brushes, an old type­writer and a tele­vi­sion, several lamps, and a head made out of glass, an abstracted figure that recalls her “Sguardo” and “Figura (sedia rossa)” (both from 1947), portraits that dispense entirely with facial features, dissolving the flesh into a flesh-coloured oval shape. There are also wooden figurines, a symbol of Rama’s life­long explo­ration of the human physique, from her early water­colour paint­ings of naked bodies to her later works that break the figure down into its constituent parts. It may look chaotic at first glance, but it is the perfect intro­duc­tion to Rama’s rich and varied world.