RIVALTA LAURA (1933)
She trained within the goldsmith tradition of Valenza, the town where she was born. She attends international classes in the engraving technique at the "Raffaello" Academy of Urbino. In 1972 she began her artistic research which is expressed through graphic works, sculptures and gold works she personally produces. Laura Rivalta's poetics revolves around the concept of the sacredness of gold. Through gold and gemstones (semi-precious and hard ones) the artist symbolically expresses the four elements of nature (earth, water, air, fire). The intent of every form of Laura Rivalta's work is to make one perceive the hidden music and the pauses in the plasticity of the material: light penetrates through the stone's transparency, reflected to be captured within the architectural form of her work through physical laws and mathematical ratios. In 1973 he exhibited at the Palazzo dei Diamanti in Ferrara. In 1974 she was invited to "Aurea" (Biennale of the goldsmithery art, Palazzo Strozzi, Florence). Two years later she participated in the exhibition "Manifestazioni Orafe Italiane" (San Paolo, Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, Brasilia). In the same year, on invitation of the Civic Museums of Vicenza, she exhibited her gold in San Giacomo church. In 1979 she exhibited at the Rizzoli Centre in Galleria Vittorio Emanuele in Milan. In 1981 at Castello Sforzesco, during the exhibition "Il Materiale delle Arti" ("The Material of Arts"), she exhibited gold, sculpture sculptures and graphics. In 1985 she was again at Palazzo dei Diamanti and in 1986 in Japan (Tokyo, Takanawa, Shibuya) where she exhibited alongside Manzù and Azuma. In 1991 the Municipality of Valenza organised an anthological exhibition; in 1996 the Municipality of Argenta invited her to "Life and costume in the dream of an artist's jewel"; in 1998 she took part in the travelling exhibition "Le tre Venezie" (Treviso, Zagreb and Vienna) under the patronage of the Foreign Affairs Department and Unesco; in 2001 she was invited to Palazzo Pitti Firenze "The art of an artist's jewel from the 20th century to the present"; in 2015 she exhibited at Villa Scalcabarozzi in Valenza "Preziosa Opera - Capolavori d'arte e tradizione orafa valenzana"; in 2020 she was given the keys to the city of Valenza.
From:
L. Lenti, Laura Rivalta, in "L'arte del gioiello e il gioiello d'artista dal '900 a oggi", exhibition catalogue, 2001, Florence, Giunti, pp. 372-373.
