Borgo Museo | Sculture 1976 – 2004

Biography

Chiara Coda was born in Vado Ligure in 1928. At an early age she began to frequent important masters in the art. Her home is located a short distance from Arturo Martini’s house. Chiara is only a teenager when she observes with keen interest the large clay sculptures that Martini arranges in the garden. The young woman passes the exams for admission to the Brera Art High School, without then enrolling in order not to leave the family. She later makes a beautiful friendship with Marino Nencioni, a pupil of Martini, and begins to attend her workshop with him; the main subjects of this artist are human representations made of terracotta, bronze and clay. In the town there is an important factory: Monteponi, which attracts the presence of many artists and where the young Chiara also goes to work clay. After the war Chiara Coda met numerous artists such as the sculptor Achille Barbaro, an artist engaged in funerary works, Giovanni Battista De Salvo, with whom she studied the nude, and Renata Cuneo from whom she took drawing lessons. Chiara Coda’s entry onto the scene takes place in the early seventies. With a solid preparation, she participates in the first group exhibitions. She begins to frequent the ceramist Pina Olivero who is dedicated to the production of antique-style ceramics, and modern-style plates and vases with aerodynamic shapes and decorated with flowers and motifs in spots of color in glossy glaze. With her Chiara exhibits her first coloured majolica nativity scene at the Campanassa di Savona. Chiara Coda is still an artist and in recent times, in Savona, she has exhibited the cribs with which in the summer of 2004, with the exhibition “Nature & Sculpture”, she inaugurated a happy artistic season for the Ancient Walls of Savona.

Philosophy

Chiara Coda very early reached expressive maturity and her own personal stylistic identity. Her works mainly concern nativity scenes, considered by the artist not only as a theme of contemplation but above all as an articulated composition of characters, animals and the environment. She also often represents motherhood, children and animals, baskets with fruit, favours, flowers and very lively figures of the players. Her style can be considered in the balance between the evocative description and the poetic synthesis. The artist depicts characters who become human types, simple people who appear to our eyes almost solemn figures, but cultured in their daily life; moods, situations and gestures that do not show themselves, do not declaim but let themselves be understood, creating an atmosphere of deep empathy with the observer. The most authentic expressive dimension for this artist, however, is found in the plastic processing of clay and terracotta. She does not empty her creations of earth after having shaped them but with wisdom she lays on the void that clayey material made as thin as a leaf which she then shapes lightly. Her shapes create a space and her figures emerge with shy amazement.

Artwork in Castagno

Chiara Coda is among the only two female artists (together with Diana Baylon) to have contributed to the collection of the Castagno Open Air Museum until 2019 (the year in which the village hosted five female artists for the first edition of the Residence program) . Unlike all the other works present here, her sculptures are signed with the only name: Chiara. The work La vita (Life) is a terracotta sculpture representing a man and a woman, perhaps Adam and Eve. If we take this interpretation into consideration, we can assume that the theme of the work is precisely the birth of the woman, and hence also the meaning of the title. According to the biblical episode, Eve was generated from a rib of Adam who thus gave her her life. The two characters are represented in a garden, surrounded by nature. The woman is sitting on the ground while the man tries to help her get up by holding out his hand. Also in this sculpture the Christian theme is therefore visible, a subject of profound and continuous inspiration for the artist.

Chiara Coda’s works in the Borgo Museo are two sculptures: “La vita – Life” (described here) and “La madre – The mother” (see other sheet).