Artist, teacher
and graphic designer.

Her research begins where dry land ends: the charts that measure the sea floor become zinc plates.

Cecilia Maran at work on a large-format sheet

On this page

01Biography
02Research and method
03Works
04The work
05For the press

/Biography

Born in Padua in 1997. She graduated in Printmaking Techniques — Fine Art Printmaking at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Venice, first level in 2019 and second level in 2021; in 2022 she took a Master’s in Graphic Design in Rome.

At the Accademia she was a tutor on the printmaking course for four years. She looks after the graphics for MovingLab Venice, is a member of the international community People of Print, and works as a graphic and editorial designer.

Her work has moved towards a decidedly abstract language, with techniques that are anything but traditional, holding to one underlying theme: the elements that recall the natural world. She has exhibited in Italy, Portugal and Croatia; in 2023 she printed at Atelier A14 in Milan the works that closed the VIR — Viafarini-in-residence residency.

In brief

Padua, 1997
Accademia di Belle Arti, Venice
Printmaking Techniques — Fine Art Printmaking
Tutor for four years
Master’s in Graphic Design
Founder of Garatelier

/Shared

The map as drawing

The lines that measure the depth of the sea — and later the routes through a city — become the outline of the plate. The sea floor reads as a drawing.

The drawing

Bathymetric charts · vector

The bathymetries — for the lagoon, the charts of ARPAV and CNR Ismar — are redrawn in vector, and the outline guides the cutting of the plate.

Shaping and breaking through

Zinc plates cut through

The plate does not stay rectangular: it is cut to the outline and broken through. The shape of the plate is already the image.

III

Etching, marbling, direct biting

Nitric acid, sulphate, citrosodina

Etching, marbling, direct biting with mordant and effervescent citrosodina. The conditions are set, and then it is left to happen: the reaction gives its name to the series Effervescentia.

The overlay

Several plates, several colours

The plates are overlaid on the press in different colours: each pass is a layer of depth. Payne’s grey, blue, green and sanguine over intaglio black.

The painted part

Alcohol inks and Indian ink · series Tegnùe

Alongside printing, painting: hand-mixed alcohol inks and Indian ink on photographic paper. The marks take up the flora of the sea floor, and the series Tegnùe is what comes of it.

/Works

Her own work

Three series: the mappings of her own movements, the sea floors of the lagoon and the Mediterranean, and the painted work.

I — 2023–2024

Mappature Sensibili

The work reveals itself as testimony to traces travelled and lived, unchanging and yet inevitably carrying with them a change, a growth that is personal and emotional.

Alia Itineris II

2024 · 90 × 120 cm · Composition of intaglio prints · Edition of 3

Alia Itineris

2024 · 100 × 90 cm · Composition of intaglio prints · Unique piece

Alta Fragmenta Itineris

2023 · 210 × 200 cm · Composition of intaglio prints · Unique piece

Fragmenta Itineris II

2023 · 100 × 67 cm · Framed intaglio print · Edition of 2

II — 2019–2022

Mare e Laguna di Venezia

The sea floors of the lagoon and the Mediterranean, redrawn from the bathymetric charts of ARPAV and CNR Ismar: the shape of each plate comes from the vector tracing of the sea bed.