Bona de Mandiargues, née Bona Tibertelli de Pisis (1926-2000) was an Italian writer, painter.and art model. Born in Rome in an artistic family, she moved to Paris after marrying Surrealist poet André Pieyre de Mandiargues.

“If the slug mostly has analogies with the vulva and lust, the snail is the representation of the cosmic spiral. Today, I am both man and woman in unity, I am like two forces that complement each other. The snail realizes this union. Moreover, I do not have a collective spirit. I am alone like a snail. I enter entirely into my shell. No one from the outside can see the bottom of it” (Bona de Mandiargues, quoted by Alain Jouffroy in “Double présentation de la peinture de Bona” (Galerie de Seine, 1974)

Bona is also famous for her fabric collages “compositions of torn, sewn and applied fabrics to canvas”. “Since a woman cannot do painting, I will do sewing” she once said with irony.

Snail of Venus is a short film (5 m.) directed by Walerian Borowczyk with Art by Bona and music by Les Flûtes Roumaines. An excerpt: