Renata Boero was born in Genoa in December 1936. She spent her childhood in Turin and continued her studies in Switzerland, pursuing a humanistic education with a Jungian orientation. Upon returning to Genoa, she met Emilio Scanavino, a key figure in her artistic development. This encounter led her to enroll at the "N. Barabino" Art School, where Scanavino taught drawing and figure drawing. From him, she learned the importance of gesture as the immediate translation of thought and the urgency of giving form to intuition, qualities that would become central to her painting practice.
During his student years, he entered and won an extemporaneous painting competition in Cervo, where he met Felice Casorati. On his advice, he submitted a work to the Rome Quadriennale in 1959: its selection and exhibition marked a turning point. From that moment, Boero realized that his painting could transcend its intimate dimension to engage with public space, time, and others. His art, until then instinctive, began to unfold in a more mental and conscious vision.
After completing his studies, he began a period of intense experimentation, focusing on the connection between sign, color, and nature. Gradually abandoning oil painting, he turned to more sculptural materials, seeking a new relationship with matter and time. Between 1960 and 1964, he worked as an assistant to Caterina Marcenaro, director of the Palazzo Rosso Museum in Genoa. His experience in restoration laboratories proved crucial: by observing ancient canvases removed from their stretchers and analyzing the evolution of pigments, he understood how the work could become a living organism, capable of transforming itself over time. It was here that the idea of freeing the canvas from the rigid structure of the stretcher was born: "Every work," he stated, "is a fragment of an infinite labor."
While restoring an ancient canvas, she discovered the use of plant-based colors derived from herbs and roots. This encounter sparked a long process of research and experimentation with natural pigments, which led to the creation of the Cromograms: cotton cloths treated with organic substances, folded, layered, and left to act over time. The artist doesn't entirely control the result, but rather triggers a process: the canvas becomes the site of continuous evolution, where nature writes and modifies its imprint. The Cromograms are not paintings, but true "writings of matter."
In the 1980s, Boero received an invitation from Luigi Veronesi to replace him in teaching Chromatology at NABA in Milan. Shortly thereafter, she was appointed Professor of Painting at the Brera Academy, and settled permanently in Milan, where she opened her studio on Via Borsieri. Here she continued her research with rigor and radicality, developing new cycles tied to the natural evolution of the pictorial medium.
Subsequent works, continuing her research on natural pigments and the transformation of matter, include the Germinazioni and Fiori di Carta series, and the more recent Ctoniografie: works buried underground and left to evolve according to the physical and biological laws of the soil. In these works, the artist completely abandons the idea of representing nature and instead allows it to act directly, triggering a process in which time, the earth, and the pigments become co-authors.
Renata Boero has exhibited in numerous Italian and international museums and institutions. Her works have been featured at the Venice Biennale (1982, 1993, 2009), in solo and group exhibitions in Europe, Africa, and Latin America, and are now held in important public collections.
In 2021, she received the Arte: Sostantivo Femminile Award from the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna in Rome. Her research is more relevant today than ever, questioning matter, time, and the relationship between human gesture and the transformations of nature. Galleria Antonio Damiani is pleased to present a selection of her works, an expression of a profound, organic art that defies classification.
