Contemporary Italian painting is the focus of the new exhibition in Hangar-7, Salzburg. Using monochrome green layers, Valentina D’Amaro, born in 1966, combines the classical and the modern, the abstract and the representational in her pictures. In an interview she explains why.
The new HangART exhibition is called ‘Una forza del passato’, ‘Power of the past’. What influence does the rich Italian art history have on your own work?
I would say that since I was a child, Italian art history has had a very strong influence. Great masters’ paintings were, and still are a never ending source of emotion for me, especially when I’m physically in front of them, looking at them as a whole or in detail. I wanted to understand what was hidden behind those wonderful paintings, what their secrets were. That’s why I kept studying their techniques. And the process I’m using now in painting, layer by layer, comes from this interest.
Should artists study art history, become familiar with old masters, have a command of traditional techniques before looking for their own style – or does all this inhibit the creative process?
Yes, I think they should. I believe the old masters to be no less contemporary than 21st century ones. Of course you need to take a panoramic view of art history as a whole, without stopping at a single period or artist. I think it can sometimes be very dangerous for the creative process to be excessively close, too involved with contemporary art gurus, trends and fashions.
What would a da Vinci or a Michelangelo paint these days – or would he possibly not have anything to do with the art scene?
They would probably use Photoshop! Obviously, this is not the same enlightened period but, since they were very great intellectuals as well as great painters and masters in many other artistic disciplines, they would certainly have found the right place in the art scene.
How much is your very personal ‘power of the past’ a primary force in your work – in that you process your past, your own life history in your pictures?
A lot of things from the past play an important role in my work. The entire way I perceive the world and consequently describe it through my paintings. But I’m sure it’s almost impossible to distinguish what played the main role.
Let’s go way back into the past. How did your knowledge of expressing your feelings in an artistic way emerge? And when did you start wanting to turn your talents and your own creativity into your profession?
As a very young child, I never played with dolls; I was attracted to pencils, brushes, colors and art books. I spent all my time drawing. I think it was quite natural for me to express my feelings in an artistic way. I’ve never actually questioned it. And in the same way, after finishing the Academy of Fine Arts, it was natural for me to want to turn my talents into a profession, although I was aware of the difficulties that I would encounter along the way.
If you had to summarize your artistic past in one exhibition, what title would you give that exhibition?
Probably ... ‘green’.
To wrap things up, please share with us the history of one of the pictures on show in Hangar-7 – from the initial idea to the development process to the last brush stroke.
The seminal idea for this work came to me while I was watching pictures that I’d taken during a train trip through the Milanese countryside – which I usually do to collect new images. What hit me was a picture with a special abstract dimension in which dark and light contrasts produced a particular rhythm, a hypnotic rhythm without being narrative at all. Then I started working on the drawing, enforcing that idea. After putting the drawing on the canvas, I began painting a very detailed sketch on it in darker colors. Then, after it had dried, I painted a second, less detailed layer on it, covering the entire surface. And then another one, and so on, using more brilliant and pure green colors in thicker layers.
Valentina D'Amaro
Valentina D'Amaro
Valentina D'Amaro
