How did you begin your journey to becoming the artist we see today?I began studying graphic design in Torino, my hometown in Italy, but I soon realized it wasn't for me so I moved to Milan where I received a degree in photography. I've been in love with photography for a long time, but I grew tired of it. It always frustrated my desire for creating and producing works--giving me the annoying sensation of constantly researching something that already exists.
Can you further explain the importance of process in your work? My research is strongly based on the time I spend in my studio, thinking or physically making the works. It's a process of mutual understanding between me and the work, a moment of solitude and concentration that I find essential to build the tension that sustains it. This process was mainly missing in my photography, and I assume that's why I slowly faded into more formal media, such as intervention and sculpture. I always aimed for a more abstract work and to be more poetic rather than narrative.
What images do you like to work on?I moved to drawing interventions on photos from the internet, but I still felt they were carrying baggage of their own meanings which was strongly interfering with the work. I then started to work on images of art history and architecture taken from books, and intervened directly on the page. I find these images ideal for my work on paper in that even if they are still figurative, they have a more ephemeral meaning--more mythological than any photographic image.
It flows much better with my abstract interventions, and leaves the eye much more able to wonder-- freeing it from the duty of finding a precise meaning.
What is your technique and approach to your work?I try to have a clean and minimal approach with every media I work with as I'm very fascinated with the capacity of achieving a strong work with few elements. The works on paper are acrylic and ink with geometrical intervention on vintage book pages. I experiment with shapes and geometry, starting from the image structure and projecting infinitely in each direction. Even in painting and sculpture, I have a similar approach. I start from a known material or shape--trying to abstract it and twist it in order to make it familiar but obscure at the same time. As I said before, I don't make a conceptual work, but a more poetic one, where I work with suggestions and questions rather than with statements. Each reading of my work is correct and justified as far as it accepts every other reading as equally accurate.
So, you hope to find meaning in the simplest elements? I'm definitely more fascinated by a complex simplicity rather than an overwhelming quantity of elements. I love open works and pieces which I can relate to with my own sensibility and without a precise and defined meaning.
It can certainly be challenging to produce work with few components. How do you hope your work will be described and received?I would like the work to be instinctively recognized. I want people to mirror themselves in the work and recognize a precise emotion. This is something that I first search for in the work of other artists. I think that the recognition of a shared feeling takes down the wall of solitude which we all fear.
Who and/or what are your artistic influences?I find much more practical inspiration for my work in the other arts, such as architecture, cinema and literature. The dialogue with other creative productions other than visual arts leaves me freer to build my own ideas without filtering them through the work of other artists. With that said, I love the work of the big masters, Joseph Beuys, Donald Judd, Richard Serra, Marina Abramovic, and Louise Bourgeois, and Tehching Hsieh. I like the research of younger artists, such as Tom Burr, Andro Wekua, Victor Man, Becky Beasley, and Claire Barclay.
Can you talk about your work, The Gatekeeper? What drew you to this image?
What fascinated me about this image was its mysterious complexity. It reminds me of a mythological figure, some sort of blind oracle that indicates and defends a narrow passage, a secret path to the unknown. This work was a part of a larger project based on the first phase of sleep. The metaphor of blindness as a mandatory condition to the journey was a strong element in the work.
What were you feeling about the image you titled, King & Queen?I've been very interested in the ambiguous balance that I see between the two figures. I rarely look at captions or background information of the images I work on. I would rather not know the truth about their background. I like to wonder about them--about their relationship and about the tension that springs from their union.
This is a major part of your work—to not know about the image and be open-ended in your creation.Yes, it's a strong part of my research on intervention. I don't want to know much about the images I work on, since the more I know, the more I'm influenced by their historical meaning. I like to relate more with the mood they express. I never deal with the specific historic facts of the image, but just with their glorious surface. I also like to work directly on a page, as an object that carries a history older than me and that will survive me. It's my forced mark on history which I think is a desire strongly connected to the need of making art.
What are your upcoming projects? I'm working on a solo show for the Zurich space of Marc De Puechredon Gallery which will open on November 24th. Then, I'll have another solo show in a project space in Milan, Italy in mid- December. Next January and February, I'll be traveling through Indonesia, following a research project of traditional wood carving and archeological architecture. Then, I'll fly to São Paulo, Brazil for the opening of a group show where I'll present a large site specific installation, while preparing another solo show for Berlin during June 2012. I'll be very busy in the near future.
Theresa Barbaro
