Me...Greta
physically like so many beings that you can meet every day, of medium-small size. I don’t follow anything in particular, apart from the hot water bottle I don’t have any specific habits, but I am convinced that the routine can kill, but this is a personal matter! I must add that I can’t stand the clock, I’m always late, by choice. I have always admired everything that is aesthetically beautiful, it was also a teaching that I received from my father, I grew up with him, and I started working in the Family Society after my artistic studies. In my first 25 years I had the good fortune to have many experiences, and to knows different cultures. I was traveling to school, I was traveling for work, I was traveling..
In the meantime New York
I was able to set up shop windows of famous shops in New York, I took care of the foreign market and I had a beautiful show room on 5th avenue . I created custom collections in colors and fragrances for the most prestigious brands in America in Australia and Japan.
But... but...
When I came back to Italy I also took care of our Bull Mastiff farm, one of our passions, and together with my horses one of the most beautiful things. There is always a but...
Let’s make a nice jump and move on, too many facts in a small amount of time and the choice was!
One summer with my husband and my four year old son we went on vacation to France in Cannes. The days passed the summer was over.
We stayed for 10 years. In the morning we went to school by walking, there was no need to pack, behind the house we had the marché Forville where you did the shopping from Monday to Saturday, always crowded, fruit vegetable counters, meat wonderful cheeses. Sunday became an antique market. At noon aperitif at the cave with our friends. During the renovation of the house, how could I limit myself to simple brushstrokes of white ? I started working with relief plasters directly on the wall. Abstract monochromatic and I must say really an unexpected effect and a great success.
We wanted to buy a sailboat and go for a few years, instead we stayed on dry land or almost. We found ourselves on the island of Malta between Africa and Sicily. And we stayed 5 years
A place rich in history, this architecture is a bit one with the landscape, poor in trees, devoid of animals, it seems almost lifeless.
From one country to another, continuous colors of shades of sand, interrupted at times by a faded green of prickly pears, and barren fields. In Malta we understand the importance of water, the impact it has with man and nature, increasingly arid, and the wind presses even more the feeling of this gruff landscape. In the evening I strolled through the narrow streets of Mdina along with my Terra, the old notable city, illuminated by the old street lamps with the faint light, like that of the candles of the past. Untouched since the time of the Knights Templar, silence reigns in the evening. Surrounded by Arab walls, It was like seeing all of Malta...
From one place to another, from one year to the next,
I limited myself to doing what I could thinks of.
Why? I don’t know !
But nature is not to be forced, when she calls, calls! and writing these words I realize, that if my parents had continued to believe more in their love for art, surely they would have loved each other more. And if I told you that art can cure so many illnesses, would you believe it ? Not only putting our hands in the dough, but also enjoying it, in the Middle East it is said that everything is nourishment, art is for our psyche, it gives us the possibility of interfering even with the things that make us most afraid, to relate if we want, even at a distance with this society, or well cope with our shyness. We should all make a habit of drawing, painting, doodling and everything you want, as we do to go to the hairdresser, take a nice warm bath, meditation and surely the world would be better and much more colorful for everyone.
From here I write to you, Spain Holè !
My friend Claudia once told me that the sky was of an intense light blue. It’s true ! The sea is lively, every day the beach changes, you feel the nature everywhere, that moves, that lives.
My work... I deal with ideas, emotions, colors, tactile sensations and everything that makes me happy to be able to convey even in part to those who then, will be faced with something that I did, with passion and love.
Time becomes like a hammock that s
wings when I’m between the stucco, the chalk, the colors always different, that I add to my dough, Glass paper, jars of waxes that while they warm in the sun remind me of the room where my grandfather Egisto spent his days has manufacture furniture, cabinets for anyone asked him, with his lapis always on his ear.
Observe, what ? we can say everything, people, animals , insects, even for hours looking from one object to another studying and memorizing their surfaces, the materials that I see change depending on the light sometimes even from temperature. With closed eyes, barefoot we can recognize the wood, a carpet, the stones, maybe marble ... The surfaces, materials and colors in Nature never cease to amaze me, I live my days around my plants, the birds that pass because they always find something to peck at. Every day at the sea, summer winter, today the high tide and rough sea, in a few days low tide and you see everything there was.
Have you ever touched a sea anemone ? Difficult to describe : contact with something that might seem slimy to the eye, since it lives in water . To the touch, small tentacles with a dry grip, and you immediately understand that it is alive.
The structure of a shell, the shell of a hedgehog the structure of corals is an abyss of details, which I like to propose with other materials such as stucco, clay, wood or cement.
The often generous materiality I interpret as movement, trying to " give life " a touch. My works are the introspection of a moment, with a change sometimes even radical, due to the development of the dough and the use of colors as I use them.
Knowing the different types of plasters and various plasters, I started to add acrylic colors, pigments in powder to obtain a full-bodied medium that could allow me to detach from the canvas give a third dimension, perceive a depth. With this method I can also define different grains of the dough for a final smooth, even shiny or velvety effect.
Each project is completely different from the others, I always change the process and if I can say it also some 'ingredient", depends on the strength or elasticity that I want to get. I don’t hide to you that I should often take notes, because when I get something I like and I want to propose it again ... There’s always something different.
I use ecological water enamels to make the medium more fluid and shiny, I often add vinyl glue to give elasticity, pigments powder for better depth and intensity of some colors. I dwell on the details that come out of the spatulates, defining them with wax crayons, colored chalks, charcoal or with the application of gold leaf. The finish with beeswax for furniture more or less amber, the scent that leaves me reminiscent of my land, Tuscany where in our countryside, furniture in the style also called "poor Tuscan art" are waxed you can find them a bit everywhere.
It’s difficult for a project to have a process that’s already planned in the beginning. I see a blank canvas as a world, where everyone can bring out what he imagines best, an expression that will last over time, years will pass, but it will not age, because art as a painting, a sculpture, an installation can be forever something original to be handed down. I see the finished work in my head as a photograph, then at work ! Some canvases have completely kidnapped me, I could not stop to continue the next day, too caught up in the energy that guided me in putting down brushstrokes, spatulates and the thing that I love, using my hands, then there is a direct contact, until I feel the fabric of the canvas, and I get carried away.
COLORI BELLI and I would say vibrant, it was one of these, the idea was a yellow picture but obviously the transport was so engaging that the energy and euphoria of the moment that was, is evident.
During a day of rough sea, the roar of the waves, the smell in the air, was born IMPETUOSO. A base of a blue, maybe whatever, and then two hands on the canvas resting on the easel. It was beautiful, the light was great, I had brought the sea to the garden !
All the opposite, concentration and discipline for the essential LISTENING TO CHOPIN, born from a proposal after a period of beautiful paintings in shades of red . Known that this color is synonymous with energy, vitality even mentally, and stimulating, I would have made a red canvas for meditation. Here development was attentive to the smallest details. A bright red uniform background that reflects well the light, but not remaining entirely shiny, a few spatulates calm and homogeneous, with coarse-grained dough for a dry and velvety surface to the touch, thus absorbing a lot of light and then opaque to the eye. Two red pigments are crossed by a spatulates that brings them with it, furrowed by a slit not for its entire length embellished by gold leaf. The eye lingers in the center of the canvas where you relax them. There are those who said that it is not easy to stop at the right point! in fact just like that. Listening to CHOPIN I focused on a red reflection!
One day I wanted to propose something like ATLANTIDE, but in the course of the work, you know those images that I have in mind, here, have taken over and the surprise was BASSA MAREA my favorite shades, simple, relaxing and elegant. I love being free, without programming, seeing what happens, giving carte blanche to the heart, at the moment, this is also my art.
Travel, even from my little Atelier, I am always traveling with the mind and colors come behind me, we, we go everywhere, this is the story of MARRAKECH. It wasn’t summer yet and it was so hot in Spain. This canvas was beautiful, but, there was a but!
I hadn’t finished it yet with wax, I put it on the fireplace, I moved it, I added a touch there, a touch there today one tomorrow, but it was still missing. But what? One morning I approach well, and I see that there was a very singular sketch of painting, I immediately colored it black, it was a little bird. Like our CALIMERA an all black pigeon who lived with us in Malta over a year and a half.
From Battery Park in New York to Bolgheri in Tuscany, the colors of the landscapes change, the smells, the food, even the air you breathe is another air.
A picture... a still image of a film of which observing it , WE become directors, actors and dreamers. Admire the same work with different lights, in different environments, and it will be easy to find yourself on the walk of Battery Park or among the vineyards and tall cypresses of Bolgheri.
Giving the title to an abstract work, precludes or promotes expectation and imagination of the observer ?
Certainly YES. The art of representing the moment of that moment, including the emotions of those who perform it is essential, I would say that something that we can not perceive the essence and still do not know.
An expression not easy to represent could be loneliness, sadness, because we go to accentuate with introspection a feeling that wears out slowly, where even the brightest color can lose its light, but maybe they come up with involuntary details full of character and interesting nuances.
I saw the colors in the dark, and I’ll show them to you too !
The shades of grays, purple blues and greens, are my favorite colors, and yet I do not use them frequently, perhaps because it is not the right time. The past year I have identified myself a lot with the shades of reds, due to this historical period, the lack of vitality, energy, strong vibrations... they encouraged me to represent them, to be able to see them in our homes, and remind us how beautiful life is, let us live it !
The shades of grays, purple blues and greens, are my favorite colors, and yet I do not use them frequently, perhaps because it is not the right time. The past year I have identified myself a lot with the shades of reds, due to this historical period, the lack of vitality, energy, strong vibrations... they encouraged me to represent them, to be able to see them in our homes, and remind us how beautiful life is, let us live it !
I like to think of giving a soul to what I do, so I’m always looking for things that maybe have already lived, such as antique frames, that restoration, that suitable. The Lionardo series was born from the "scraps" of the boxes for the shipment of paintings. The pieces of wood remained resting on an old yellow frame bought at the antiques fair. I see PRIMO completely finished, with a hacksaw I got to work. It took several days, I was treading the time backwards, between seeing and getting something finished it takes his time. From the white of the stucco background behind the frame, to the black, with the break of the yellow frame, the overlapping surfaces are all mounted at different levels, like a movement of woods on a stable wall, still, but its best performance and on a trestle, close to a light that plays between one thickness and another.
I dedicated this series to da Vinci, who was baptized by his maternal grandfather as Lionardo da Vinci, so I signed the contract to establish the date of delivery of the Virgin of the Rocks.
I work with different materials, but sometimes it also takes an alternative size, then I would say a nice round !
The NOVOS MUNDOS series, you don’t think it’s just us, the Ball where we live and only we have it... who knows what galaxies, universes, or dreams, a Novos Mundos, and you go ! This material was born from the need not to bake any kind of clay, since for some time limited and even impossible. The addition of fiberglass and other small processes make them light and very resistant. Some worlds have organic insertions, like pieces of corals found on the beach, remains of shells and… who knows.
Now I feel that it’s time to propose new art, this winter I would like to do something different. I have already for some time that my images wander around in my head, while I am on a job, They also show up when I go to bed, and since I suffer from insomnia...
As you will have understood, that’s why I’m always late, every excuse is good, to stop while I’m in the car when I see a nice piece of wood, get lost in the corridors of the shops to look for a glue, some screws, or what would do for me, but it doesn’t exist. If you ever meet me, I will always have some golden speck or spot of paint on my clothes or hands and definitely a little hole somewhere !
I hug you hard, wherever you are, have fun doing what you like and live in the beautiful !
