top of page

Elle de Bernardini is a transsexual woman, artist and dancer, whose works are largely permeated by her biography. Using several languages, such as performance, video, photography, painting, object and installation, her works address issues of gender, sexuality, identity, biopolitics, power relations and control of the body by the system. Her interdisciplinary practice emerges from the recreational movements of construction and destruction of her androgynous image, a driving force of the artist's interest in investigating and questioning the binary limits imposed socially on what is instituted as male and female, madness and sanity, pornography and art. In the series countersexual forms (2019), the artist uses Paul Preciado and his work Countersexual Manifest, in which the Spanish philosopher proposes a non-binary social model in which individuals would be understood as “talking” bodies or subjects imbued with power. Preciado also presents contrasexual inversion practices such as dildotectonics and dildotopia, technologies that, radically influencing interpersonal and sexual relationships, would allow the rupture of a system that imprisons bodies and forms of pleasure. Armed with these concepts, Elle de Bernardini creates objects that allude to body parts, especially erogenous zones, recombined in unusual ways. Through a synthetic representation of these limbs, such as breasts, vaginas, anus, etc., Bernardini develops a kind of formal lexicon of his own, in which supposedly dildo-legs or dildo- arms, clitoral implants and hole openings would be possible in various parts of the body, deconstructing the conjectures of a presumed unique bodily materiality.

Beatriz Lemos, 2019 - MASP catalog. "Female Stories, Women Artists after 2000". Curator: Isabella Rjeille

190329_Élle_de_Bernardini_-_4.jpg

Untitled (2019) - Series: Countersexual Forms - Acrylic, gold, felt and nail on canvas - 66x50

Marcos Amaro Foundation Collection, Itu / Sao Paulo

190329_Élle_de_Bernardini_-_5.jpg

Untitled (2019) -  Series: Countersexual Forms - Acrylic, Gold, Rubber and Nail on Canvas - 50x40

190329_Élle_de_Bernardini_-_2.jpg

Xhe (2019) -  Series: Countersexual Forms -  Acrylic, gold, felt and nail on canvas - Diptych - 2 canvas 50x40

190329_Élle_de_Bernardini_-_3.jpg

Untitled (2019) - Series: Countersexual Forms - Acrylic, Gold, Felt, Rubber and Nail on Canvas - 210x50

191201-Élle_de_Bernardini-ph_Ana_Pigos

Expanded body (2019) - Series: Countersexual Forms - Acrylic, neopreme, silicone, vinyl, suede and nail on canvas

- 180x80

191201-Élle_de_Bernardini-ph_Ana_Pigos

Untitled (2019) - Series: Countersexual Forms - Acrylic, suede, synthetic leather and nail on canvas - 70cm diameter

191201-Élle_de_Bernardini-ph_Ana_Pigos

Untitled (2019) -  Series: Countersexuals Forms - Acrylic, silicone and nail on canvas - 80cm diameter

Malabares.jpg

Juggling (2020) - Series: Countersexual Forms- Acrylic, gold leaves and felt on diptych canvas - Diptych - 30x40

200206-Elle de Bernardini-ph Ana Pigosso

The eye (2019) - Series: Countersexual Forms - Acrylic, gold leaf, felt and nail on canvas - 32x30

190329_Élle_de_Bernardini_-_1.jpg

DNA I (2019) - Series: Countersexual Forms - Gold and acrylic on canvas - Polyptych - 100x20

Rio Art Museum Collection, Rio de Janeiro

2: Elle.jpg

Matter of Time #1 (2019) - Series: Countersexual Forms - Gold, suede, synthetic leather, silicone and nail on canvas

- 65x30

3: Elle.jpg

Matter of Time #1 (2019) - Series: Countersexual Forms - Gold, suede, synthetic leather, silicone and nail on canvas

- 65x30

190329_Élle_de_Bernardini_-_7.jpg

Pending II (2019) - Series: Countersexual Forms - Recycled blanket, felt, rubber and nail on canvas - 50x30

190329_Élle_de_Bernardini_-_6.jpg

Pending I (2019) - Series: Countersexual Forms - Recycled blanket, felt, rubber and nail on canvas - 45x30

190329_Élle_de_Bernardini_-_8.jpg

Pending II (2019) - Series: Countersexual Forms - Recycled blanket, felt, rubber and nail on canvas - 36x20

210201-Elle de Bernardini-ph Ana Pigosso

Hieroglyph (2021) - Series: Countersexual Forms - Leather and acrylic on canvas - 63x40

ph : Ana Pigosso .jpg

Landscape VII (2019) - Series: Countersexual Forms - Felt on canvas - 20x20

200206-Elle de Bernardini-ph Ana Pigosso

Landscape VIII (2020) - Series: Countersexual Forms - Felt on canvas - 20x30

190329_Élle_de_Bernardini_-_10.jpg

Landscape V (2019) - Series: Countersexual Forms - Felt on canvas - 30x20

190329_Élle_de_Bernardini_-_9.jpg

Landscape VI (2019) - Series: Countersexual Forms - Felt on canvas - 20x20

54524312_366160197408062_644127776079819

Landscape II (2019) - Series: Countersexual Forms  - Felt on canvas - 20x20

210514-Elle de Bernardini-ph Ana Pigosso-27-lw.jpg

The Mulata (2021) - Series: Counterssexual Forms - Cattle leather, synthetic leather and acrylic on canvas - 62x60

210514-Elle de Bernardini-ph Ana Pigosso-26-lw.jpg

He is so black that he is purple (2021) - Series: Countersexual Forms - Synthetic leather, cattle leather, vinyl and acrylic on canvas - 60x40

210514-Elle de Bernardini-ph Ana Pigosso-21-lw.jpg

The Vagina (2021) - Series: Countersexual Forms - Synthetic leather, cattle leather, vinyl and nail on canvas - 180x90

210514-Elle de Bernardini-ph Ana Pigosso-29-lw.jpg

Countersexual Frieze #4 (2021) - Serie: Countersexual Forms - Gold, acrylic, silicone, synthetic leather and nail on canvas - 20x80

bottom of page