Elda Cerrato was a painter and educator born in Asti, Italy, who migrated to Argentina in 1940. Her work focused on the mystery of being, the immensity of outer space, and human organisation. To accomplish this, she used an abstract language in which geometric structures, biological forms, and phenomenological experimentations with colour coexisted. Maternidad (1971) belongs to the extended series of paintings, created around the same time her son was born, in which Cerrato investigates the mysterious figure of the Beta Being (1967–1973). This being is an abstract creature who possesses a cluster of supernatural qualities and who uses erotism as a language to move through reality. Through the suggestive use of circles and ovals, with which Cerrato symbolically alludes to fertility, Maternidad announces the Beta Being’s imminent landing and depicts its displacement from a colourful geography to the turbulent reality of Argentina. Around the arrival of this energetic entity, Cerrato created a universe of geometric abstraction, soft forms, and nonexistent organisms, which was influenced by Surrealist poetry, ancestral knowledge, science fiction, and her long-standing curiosity about life from outer space. Simultaneously, she used avant-garde languages to synthesise a spiritual criticism of the ascendant political violence in Latin America.
This is the first time the work of Elda Cerrato is presented at Biennale Arte.
—Nicolas Cuello
