Red Maternity / Maternità in Rosso | Franca Balla | oil on canvas, painting, iperealism | Italy

 

Franca Balla's "Maternity in Red" offers a rich analysis of the work, highlighting both its hyperrealistic visual significance and its deeply empathetic meaning. Through the composition and classical pose, the artist directs the viewer's attention to the emotional intensity of the mother-child relationship in a somewhat voyeuristic manner. The materiality of the bodies suggests a bond so profound that it seems to flood muscles, limbs, and faces with the vital force that was once contained entirely within the mother's womb before birth.

There is a modest awareness of being a woman within the mother, just as the autonomous life gives the child such confidence that they approach the world with curiosity and security. Finally, there is the perception that "Maternity in Red" is a work that looks to the future of the relationship, hinting at a future dynamic of conflict yet complicity typical of a mother-child relationship.

This interpretation emphasizes the complexity and emotional depth of Franca Balla's work, which goes beyond mere visual representation to explore human connections and relational dynamics.

Luigi Starace

La maternità in rosso di Franca Balla è un'opera che celebra la vita sia nel significante iconico di pertinenza iperrealista, sia nel significato fortemente empatico. Dalla  composizione a posa classica l'artista finalizza i tratti dei tessuti in modo centrifugo, a rompere l’habitus classicheggiante, portando l’attenzione dell’osservatore a soffermarsi sull'intensità emozionale della relazione madre figlio in modo voyeuristico.  La matericità dei corpi lascia quasi intendere che il legame fra i due sia così intenso da inondare muscoli, arti e visi di quella forza vitale che prima del parto era tutta racchiusa nel ventre materno.

C'è la consapevolezza, pudica, di essere anche una donna nella madre, così come la vita autonoma dà una fiducia tale al figlio che questi si affaccia al mondo con curiosità e sicurezza. Infine si ha la percezione che La Maternità in rosso sia  un'opera che guarda al futuro della relazione, lasciando intuire un futuro dinamismo conflittuale, ma complice, tipico di una relazione madre figlio. 

Luigi Starace

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Franca Balla is a hyperrealist painter who over the years has dedicated herself to both author copies and paintings inspired by naturalistic themes. Miniatures from the 18th century, works by Fragonard, with their meticulous details, or those of other great masters of the past, have represented a study and a challenge to learn various painting techniques thoroughly and then develop them with personal taste. Among the most recent series are those dedicated to flowers and their symbolic meanings, or those that immortalize juicy and glazed fruit pastries. It's a contemporary Pop Art that finds in everyday life the most suitable stimulus to narrate technical skill and originality of vision. Franca Balla employs glazing, a light painting technique, whose subtle tones blend well together, creating perfect effects of light and three-dimensionality. The inner world thus becomes magnified, an aesthetic image with a definite visual impact. She has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions, both in Italy and abroad; numerous of her works are found in national private collections. -

Guido Folco, MIIT Museum, Turin

I met Franca Balla at the Milan Biennale and began to appreciate her painting and follow her work. Franca is not a "spontaneous" painter; she attended the Academy of Fine Arts and the Art Workshop of Master Giorgio Rocca, just like the great masters did. Thanks to Giorgio Rocca, she learned the tricks of the trade. Franca is very skilled at reproducing the works of the great painters, but through her own paintings, she captures the beauty of the reality around her. She is a truly talented artist; she brings flowers and fruits to life in her paintings, making them seem to come out of the canvas. I was struck by the painting "Red Oranges" with its black background and the variations of orange that seem to be there, ready to be shared with someone. In fact, you can even perceive the smell and taste. Observing "Motherhood in Red," you notice the infinite sweetness between a mother and child. In the mother's gaze, there is all the unconditional maternal love, the kind that goes beyond death. In "Peony," on the other hand, I find the beauty of the artist's soul, her strength as a woman, her anger towards adversity, but also her immense love for life. The work "Mixed Fruit" takes me back to Caravaggio's fruit basket, where the still life is the protagonist. Here, there is a truly tangible realism that attracts the viewer's eye; the bunch of grapes is the absolute star of the painting. In the portrait "The Clown," all the artist's life is encapsulated with great irony, hiding the melancholy of the days that often accompany her, concealed behind a smile, but placated through her painting. Franca, in addition to having innate talent, comes from a family of artists; let's remember that the famous futurist painter Giacomo Balla was a direct cousin of the painter's paternal grandfather. Franca is endowed with extraordinary sensitivity that only great artists possess. I am very honored and pleased to accompany some of her works with poetry; they are the result of the great emotions that this painter has managed to draw out of my soul. Her works have been exhibited in Italy and abroad, receiving great acclaim.

Antonietta Micali, Writer, Poet, and Journalist

Biography

Franca Balla was born in Turin on June 4, 1949, where she attended primary school before pursuing her passion by enrolling at the Albertina Academy of Fine Arts in Turin. The famous futurist painter Giacomo Balla, born in Turin on July 18, 1871, and passing away in Rome on March 1, 1958, was Franca's direct cousin on her paternal grandfather's side. Along with Gino Severini, Umberto Boccioni, and Carlo Carrà, Giacomo Balla signed the manifesto of the Futurist Movement. "Together they developed the representation of the concept of movement through the multiple reproduction of a single subject as in a sequence of frames." From The Art, published by Mondadori (biweekly periodical no. 4 of August 25, 1998).

After obtaining her Art Diploma, Franca Balla began to frequent the Art Workshop of Master Giorgio Rocca to learn the technique of glazing. Subsequently, she embarked on a personal path, experimenting with new techniques, initially exploring Flemish painting, then Impressionism, copying several paintings by Van Gogh, Monet, and Renoir, and later moving on to Verismo and Naturalism, depicting still lifes of fruit baskets, flowers, and landscapes. Finally, she arrived at Hyperrealism, the technique she currently employs. She participates in various solo and group exhibitions in Italy and abroad, the latest of which was organized from July 29 to August 18, 2022, by the Artistic Association Arte e Cultura of Manfredonia, in the South Moat of the Swabian-Angevin-Aragonese Castle, where she received acclaim both from visitors and the Artistic Jury, which appreciated her works of reproduction and beyond.