Maria Agostini
Staff Writer
Name: Giada Storelli
Profession: Painter & Student at Brera Fine Arts Academy, Milan
Nationality: Italian
Location: Milan
Contacts: [email protected]
Age: 22
She still does not remotely make a living off being an artist and she is still a college student – exactly like all of us. Yet, I don’t think I’ve ever experienced as interesting ideas as hers. I might be biased – yes, she is one of my best friends and yes, we share the joy of coming from that same little village in the middle of nowhere – but please read on, and read until the very last question – I promise you it’s worth it!
1. Tell us about what you do…
I have been studying at Brera Fine Arts Academy in Milan for the past 3 years, but I have been mostly collaborating with Nino Mustica, one of the most reputated Italian living painters. At his studio, I have been trying to grasp all the secrets of this world, master my technique while always working on new projects. I am also a freelance writer for luukmagazine.com (http://www.luukmagazine.com/en), a fashion and lifestyle themed website. I find the fashion world almost as fascinating as the art one, as I strongly believe in a connection between the two: very often, haute couture dresses are actual wearable art work. More in general, I just hate etiquettes that try to limit an artist creativity.
2. How did you end up doing it?
I have always had, since a very young age, a sort of “illumination” for the colour. I used to be literally enchanted when I saw colours put together, they just transmitted peace, tranquillity, and a sense of deep reassurance: it was as if they helped me to feel at home. Of course, drawing has always been one of my main passions: it was about trying to show others what my world looked like. All my work, studies and projects are more an investment on my present, rather a focus on my professional future: it has to do with pursuing what in life reassures me the most, what trasmits me that feeling of serenity typical of children.
3. Where are you from originally & what has taken you where you live now?
I come from a very small town on the Italian east coast, where chances to explore the artistic world are extremely rare. However, its landscape’s colours have always been extremely inspiring.
I have been living in Milan for 3 years now. Here, I encountered endless opportunities to express my art, it is a city extremely opened to different influences, where young people’s talents are appeciated and enhanced. Showcases of this tendency are occasions such as the “Salone Internazionale del Mobile” (International Furniture Fair of Milan), “miArt” (Modern and Contemporary Art Fair) and also dedicated parts of the Fashion Week itself. It is extremely important to be surrounded by such an environment, it constatly motivates me to venture in new projects, it gives you the hope to keep gambling within this very selective world.
4. Where else would you ever live? Why?
Another city that I would love to work in is certainly Berlin, but also New York. Berlin is definitely the new European capital of culture, both for what concerns fine arts, but also when it comes to music and design. It’s an incredible kaleidoscope, continuously moving, that gets richer and richer in terms of ideas. However, my curiosity has recently been caught by the Asian continent, a very expanding reality, an extremely flourishing market, but more than that, a completely different culture and, consequently, the opportunity of comparing and melting with our indigeneous one. The Asian art scene could be a source of perpetual ispiration for the creation of work, being also a symbol of this speading cultural globalisation. One city that could group all of this together is certainly Hong Kong. I would love to live there.
5. What is missing in your city’s art scene?
One of the main problems behind Milan art scene, and more broadly, behind the Italian one, is the lack of courage in detaching itself from our extremely heavy artistic legacy with the past. It is like a sword of Damocles that ties us to the past and renders us its prisoners. We clearly are not to forget our striking artistic past, but that we need to regain that creative and innovating spirit dominant in our past maestri: they used to learn the traditional techniques from their teachers, improve them and create new art pieces always tending towards the infinite. This courage is what has allowed Italy to be the artistic world capital since the Roman Empire. Unfortunately, today we often look back, too often too afraid not to be able to make art worthy of our previous production, therefore risking to undertake an Icarus flight. We need to regain the right audacity to dictate new trends, and this certainly means encouraging young art.
6. What has contributed the most towards what you have achieved?
So far, definetely all the travelling I have done and therefore, the desire to portrait the places I have seen through their most striking colours. One more important aspect is curiosity: it has always been one of the dominant traits of my personality and in this world, it has helped me so much – I have always looked for the techniques behind the art works I liked, I always been curious to find out how an artist’s idea turned into his art piece, what was the technical journey he undertook.
7. At the age of 20, what did you think you were going to do “in life” – where did you see yourself in the future? Has your dream come true already?
At the age of 20 I had just decided that this was what I intended to try and do in life. Two years and some very important experiences later (I’m 22), my main dream and concern is still the same: to get people I know to love art (in general) – not necessarily or primarily my art.
My dream would therefore be to do talent scouting next to developing my own projects and be an active part of new trends. Art should be the furthest thing away from being an elitist practice as it is now. It’s to those who are uninitiated to this world that my effort will be maily devoted to, I want them to feel like they belong to it just as much as I do, just like any other artist.
Working towards its achievement probably means moving either to Paris or Berlin to further master my painting skills and to work next to other renowned artists. Despite I know that being someone’s assistant might slow down your own career, being surrounded by an art genius’ incredible ideas opens your mind towards immense horizons: this is indeed hugely important towards the development of your own projects.
8.What projects are you currently working on?
At the moment, I am working on a project that embraces design and more traditional painting. Theidea is to use my own canvas paintings with acrylic technique and insert colourful LEDs that follow their colours path; then, be able to switch them on and off willingly. In this way, the piece of art not only has an aesthethic funcion within the room, but it also interacts with it, it becomes functional, namely, a lamp. At the same time, the art work is enriched by lights and shadows, by new chromatic effects. I got the idea from observing how important light has become in design and how the visual arts’ future is projected towards lights tricks and the experimentalism around it. LED has great potential thanks to its versatility and its high impact luminosity: in this way, the art piece seems to come to life, it catches one’s attention, generating new evocative feelings while greatly interacting with the surrounding environment.
9. If you could meet any artist – living or dead – who would it be?
An artist that I have always wanted to meet and that has always intrigued me is Marcel Duchamp. He has completely inverted the art rules and its vision, leading towards conceptualism and informalism.
However, the person I would love to meet the most is an artist who has not born yet, as art to me means something that lives in the future, a dimension of time that we cannot perceive, and yet something that we are deeply intrigued by, almost by a divine veneration.
10. And finally, what are you hoping will get you your “15 minutes of fame”?
My hope is to contribute towards allowing as many people as possible to have their “15 minutes of fame”, so that many will have the chance to leave something belonging to themselves to the entire world.
The traveller’s corner – Giada’s tips if you to go to Milan…
Art Gallery: Fondazione “Arnaldo Pomodoro” (http://www.fondazionearnaldopomodoro.it/), La Fabbrica del Vapore (http://www.fabbricadelvapore.org/en/)
Theatre: Piccolo Teatro di Milano (http://www.piccoloteatro.org/)
Gig venue: Tunnel Club (http://www.tunnel-milano.it/), Circolo Magnolia (http://www.circolomagnolia.it/)
Area of the city: Colonne di San Lorenzo, Arco della Pace, Corso Como, via Brera
Shop: My Closet Memories Corneil’s (http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000194212772&sk=wall, http://www.mycloset.it/?IDC=1&ID=2&page=1%29)
Cafe: Cioccolati Italiani (http://www.cioccolatitaliani.it/ ), California Bakery (http://www.californiabakery.it/), Noy Concept Restaurant Cafè (http://www.facebook.com/NoyMilano)
Hostel/B&B: Ostello “La Cordata” (http://www.ostellolacordata.com), B&B “I tulipani” (http://www5.bed-and-breakfast.it/pagina_prezzi.cfm?id=22051&IDRegione=9), “B&B Hotels” (http://www.bbhotels.it/ita-navigli#!__eng-navigli/rooms)
