DEFORMA

Translated automatically from Italian ·

"What deforms us doesn't erase who we are. It transforms us into what we become."

Francesco Gianfelici

About the artist

Francesco Gianfelici is an emerging Italian artist, self-taught, who began his artistic journey through personal and independent research. His practice stems from a need to experiment with materials and find expressive forms capable of transforming ideas and reflections into concrete works. His path is still evolving and develops through experimentation, observation, and the search for a personal language, far from pre-established formulas.

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Artist statement

I'm Francesco Gianfelici, an emerging, self-taught Italian artist. My research stems from the idea that form is not something definitive, but something that can be transformed through experience. In my work, I intervene directly on the material through a physical and manual technique: pressure and torsion applied exclusively by hand, without the use of heat. It's a direct process, in which every fold, dent, and deformation arises from the force applied to the object. From this process comes DEFORMA, an exploration of the relationship between identity, transformation, and imperfection. The object retains its original identity, but is modified until it acquires a new one. What we normally consider a defect becomes a trace of the journey and, precisely through that deformation, something unique. My art therefore begins with a simple question: what if what changes us doesn't make us less of what we were, but something different, something unrepeatable?

DEFORMA 01

Plastic bottle, wood, LED light · 2026 · 17 x 5

DEFORMA 01 DEFORMA 01 is the first work in the DEFORMA project. DEFORMA stems from a reflection on the human condition: society tends to make us equal, while life, through what we experience, inevitably makes us different. Life impacts us, crushes us, bends us, and reshapes us. Difficulties, traumas, experiences, and scars leave "dents" on us, just like those that time and pressure leave on matter. In this work, a bottle, an object industrially produced according to a standard shape and identical to countless others, is deformed exclusively through the pressure and twisting of the hands, without the use of heat. The folds and deformations that would normally be considered defects become the most important part of the work. They are the trace of what has happened to the material and, metaphorically, of what happens to us. Deformation is not a defect to be hidden. It is our history. It is what makes us different, unrepeatable, and unique.

DEFORMA 02

PET · 2026 · 19 z 6

DEFORMA 02 Unique work, 2026 Hand-deformed PET, LED light Francesco Gianfelici This work originates from a mass-produced water bottle, identical to millions of others. It is deformed only by hand: pressure and torsion, without heat, without molds, and without machinery. The creases that form are not replicable. The work speaks to what happens when a standard object is damaged by force. Society wants us smooth and equal. Life compresses us. Those dents seem like damage, but they are the shape that makes the object—and a person—unique. Light is not an ornament. It passes through the creases and makes the history of the surface visible.

ArchiveEnter the archive2 works

List of plates

01DEFORMA 01Plastic bottle, wood, LED light · 2026 · 17 x 5
02DEFORMA 02PET · 2026 · 19 z 6

Biography

Rome, lives and works in Rome

DEFORMA is the first project I'm developing: an exploration of form when it bends, stretches, or ceases to stay in place. I don't have an exhibition history. I start with a simple question: what remains of an image, an object, or a body when the measure holding them together is removed? In this initial period, I'm experimenting, discarding, and keeping only what remains.

Education

Bachelor's Degree in Nursing

The ArtLab Letter

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