Francesca Virginia Coppola (Rome, 1981) is a multidisciplinary artist who lives and works in Rome and Los Angeles. Her practice begins from existence as a primary condition, engaging with matter that precedes cultural projection.
She works with found elements such as bark, branches, seeds, rocks, and their extracted pigments to operate from matter that exists independently of human intention, while sharing the same fundamental condition of being. In doing so, she embraces installation, assemblage, and soil/tree rubbings, a technique she developed to hold bodily presence in relation to the external.
In Coppola’s practice, artistic intervention holds no hierarchical priority over organic or biological phenomena, both are understood as occurrences within the same field of existence. Her process-based and site-specific configurations precede narrative or imposed meaning. The work happens at the threshold of time, being and place.
Her work has been exhibited internationally at the Silkeborg Bad Art Center (Denmark), Brand Library & Art Center (California, USA), and featured in MoMA’s In the Studio program (New York, USA). A finalist in the 19th edition of the Arte Laguna Prize (Venice, Italy), she has been awarded notable residencies, including The Wild: Artist in Residence (Ontario, Canada) and recently NAHR (Val Taleggio, Italy), where she experimented with the use of fire as a medium, deepening her investigation of ephemerality.
CV
b. 1981, Rome – Italy
EDUCATION
2007 BFA (Painting), summa cum laude, Accademia di Belle Arti, Rome (Italy)
EXHIBITIONS
Selected group exhibitions:
2024 Arte Laguna Prize Finalists’s Exhibition, Arsenale Nord, Venice, Italy
2024 FIRE: Renewal, Rituals, Power, NAHR Residency Open Studio Day, Val Taleggio, Italy
2024 Brand 52 Annual National Juried Exhibition of Works on Paper, Brand Library & Art Center, Glendale, CA, USA
2023 Amazing Nature, Art Centre Silkeborg Bad, Silkeborg, Denmark
2023 Call of the Wild, Southern California Open Regional Exhibitions, CA, USA
2023 Botanical Art, Las Laguna Art Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA, USA
2018 In the Studio: Art by MoMA’s Learning Community, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA
2009 T+T=A – Tusculanae & Tusculani artisti in città, Spazio Zip, Frascati, Italy
2008 Tuscolanae, III edition, Museo Scuderie Aldobrandini, Frascati, Italy
2007 Video art exhibition, Accademia di Belle Arti, Rome, Italy
2006 Biennale Giovani Artisti, Imperia, Italy
2004 Notte Bianca, Mostra di Pittura; Accademia di Belle Arti, Rome, Italy
2004 Settimana della Cultura, Accademia di Belle Arti, Rome, Italy
Solo exhibitions:
2018 Paper, linen, wind, water, Lago Albano, Castel Gandolfo, Italy
2004 Ai quattro (e)venti, Casa delle Culture, Rome, Italy
RESIDENCIES AND AWARDS
2024 Arte Laguna Prize, Finalist, Venice, Italy
2024 NAHR Nature, Art & Habitat Residency Eco-Laboratory of Multidisciplinary Practice, Val Taleggio, Italy
2019 The Wild: Artist In Residence, Wild Mill Studios, Ontario (Canada)
PUBLICATIONS
2025 Soils Turn, Alexandra R. Toland, Patricia L. Watts
2022 “The Studio Image Project”, Friend of the Artist (FOA)
2015 Arte e Design, “Eco Artisti Offresi”. Title of featured artwork: “Today is a lie”
CV
b. 1981, Rome – Italy
EDUCATION
2007 BFA (Painting), summa cum laude, Accademia di Belle Arti, Rome (Italy)
EXHIBITIONS
Selected group exhibitions:
2024 FIRE: Renewal, Rituals, Power, NAHR Residency Open Studio Day, Val Taleggio, Italy
2024 Brand 52 Annual National Juried Exhibition of Works on Paper, Brand Library & Art Center, Glendale, CA, USA
2023 Amazing Nature, Art Centre Silkeborg Bad, Silkeborg, Denmark
2023 Call of the Wild, Southern California Open Regional Exhibitions, CA, USA
2023 Botanical Art, Las Laguna Art Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA, USA
2018 In the Studio: Art by MoMA’s Learning Community, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA
2009 T+T=A – Tusculanae & Tusculani artisti in città, Spazio Zip, Frascati, Italy
2008 Tuscolanae, III edition, Museo Scuderie Aldobrandini, Frascati, Italy
2007 Video art exhibition, Accademia di Belle Arti, Rome, Italy
2006 Biennale Giovani Artisti, Imperia, Italy
2004 Notte Bianca, Mostra di Pittura; Accademia di Belle Arti, Rome, Italy
2004 Settimana della Cultura, Accademia di Belle Arti, Rome, Italy
Solo exhibitions:
2004 Ai quattro (e)venti, Casa delle Culture, Rome (Italy); Title of artwork: “L’acqua del rubinetto è potabile” (installation), Curator: Gabriele Gaspari
RESIDENCIES
2024 NAHR Nature, Art & Habitat Residency Eco-Laboratory of Multidisciplinary Practice, Val Taleggio, Italy
2019 The Wild: Artist In Residence, Wild Mill Studios, Ontario (Canada)
COLLECTIONS
2018 Private collection, Rome, Italy
2017 Private collection, Rome, Italy
PUBLICATIONS
2021 “The Studio Image Project”, Friends of the Artist (FOA)
2015 Arte e Design, “Eco Artisti Offresi”. Title of featured artwork: “Today is a lie”