How and why did you start your artistic career?

The first thing to consider was establishing a natural inclination towards painting and drawing, which had begun to manifest in my life with simplicity and great inner drive. My path was advised during my school years by teachers, and I strongly felt the desire to continue these studies first at the art high school and then at the academy of fine arts, which I was able to do thanks to the support of my family. These were formative years, rich in experiences and enthusiasm. Despite having attended art schools, which by definition led me to a knowledge of the painting medium, and having graduated in painting in 2002, I felt, as is natural, that my understanding of my experience with painting had just begun: I wanted complete mastery of the medium to be able to fully “speak” that language. After the academy, I lived several years during which this knowledge had to take root in me. Not surprisingly, I never defined myself as an artist until around the age of 40. Since then, a career began, in the sense that I felt that my work, always subject to continuous development, experimentation, and research, could be contextualized in a social setting, and thus establish those relationships that are fundamental to an artist’s life and closely linked to the evolution or simply to the flow of personal artistic expression, which developed in two parallel and closely connected research areas: drawing and painting.

How did you discover your medium and why did you choose it?

By personal choice as well as practical life management reasons, I don’t have a studio as I love living in the same place where I paint, especially at night. This led me to prefer water-based colors and therefore acrylics in painting, but it’s not the only reason I use this medium; another reason is the speed of execution. Since 2016, drawing has become very important and has taken on a life of its own, whereas before it had always served painting. This has led to a change in the painterly mark and a speed of gesture that acrylic supports harmoniously. I define my painting as “alla prima” because there is a speed and an emotional tension that radically determine the outcome of a work. In drawing, the substance becomes thinner and turns into pigment dust; dry pastels are reduced to powder, which I use directly with the tips of my fingers on paper, pressing the color more or less. Rare traces of pencil are used in the drawing.

Can you talk about your creative process? How does your work come about? How long does it take to create a work? When do you know it is finished?

As mentioned earlier, I paint at night and alternate nights dedicated to drawing with nights dedicated to painting. The starting point is photographs from the early twentieth century that I unconsciously elaborate based on instinct. In drawing, the focus is on faces, while in painting, the scope broadens to include human figures in naturalistic settings. There is also a difference in size as I prefer large dimensions for painting and medium-small ones for drawing. Being a creative process mainly based on emotion and the concentration of the moment, I tend to start and finish a painting in one or two nights at most. In drawing, the creation is even faster, and in one night, I can execute four or five drawings. All this does entail a substantial amount of work, but not everything I do manages to satisfy me, as it’s like saying “it’s either a hit or a miss!” and there is a dose of mystery in all of this. It’s as if I let myself be carried away by creative energy, and when a work is finished, I feel it in my body as well as from the sensation of inner peace that spreads within me.

Who are your favorite artists? Which ones are you inspired by?

There have been many artists who, for various research reasons, have absorbed my thoughts. Some have caught my attention due to pure affinity, others because they filled my gaps, and others for their majesty and infinity. At twenty, I was fascinated by Egon Schiele, and I went to his hometown, Tulln an der Donau in Austria, to fully experience his reality. Currently, the artists I feel close to are: Tiepolo, Francis Picabia, John Currin, Richard Diebenkorn, Luc Tuymans, and Marlene Dumas.

THE ARTIST

Name: Elisa Filomena
Residence: Italy
Profession: Painter

FEATURED WORKS