For Ellipsis Prints, Bea Bonafini produced two limited edition Risograph prints centred on the image of a ceramic bird in ascent and descent. The soaring bird, drawn from her sculptural practice, becomes the focal point of the composition.

In her ceramic works, these birds are formed through the marbling of mixed clays, vulcan stoneware and coloured porcelain, creating intricate surface patterning. In the Risograph translation, that material complexity is reinterpreted through layered colour and fragmentation. The bird’s form is subtly broken apart and reassembled, complicating its reading and resisting symbolic certainty.

Long associated with spiritual transformation and transcendence, the bird in Bonafini’s work is neither purely mythic nor purely decorative. Instead, it hovers between states: elevation and gravity, cohesion and dispersal, echoing the fluidity and chromatic harmony that characterise her wider mixed-media practice.

The Risograph process intensifies the patterned effect, allowing tonal shifts and layered inks to echo the marbled construction of the original ceramic works. Each design is produced in a strictly limited edition of 100.

Learn more about artist Bea Bonafini