Patrizia Vignolia, Beautiful Bizarre Artist Directory member provides some fascinating insights into her practice and experience as a surrealist portrait painter, as she responds to the questions below:
- If you had to choose only three words that you feel describe your work, what would they be? And why?
- Many things inundate our daily lives. What role do you feel art and the artist still have in today’s society?
- If you could collaborate with any artist, dead or alive, who would it be with and why?
- What do you think is the single most important piece of advice you have been given as an artist?
If you had to choose only three words that you feel describe your work, what would they be? And why?
Intriguing, skillful, and connective.
All three of these words are highly important for me in terms of the reasons I make my art. I strive to create visually intriguing images that pull people in and hold them there. My work deals with things we share and experience and how our brains process these things.
I spent many years studying and practicing my skills including a formative time studying the techniques of the masters in Florence Italy, earning my MFA from The New York Academy of Art and continued self-study and practice.
The desire to create skillful work is rooted in my artistic vision and belief that through these skills I can communicate my ideas best to others. Above everything it is most important to me that my work is connective. I create for the sole reason of connecting to others and to the universe itself.
Many things inundate our daily lives. What role do you feel art and the artist still have in today’s society?
Since what we know of as the start of human history, we have been communicating and expressing through visual imagery, long before the written word. Cave paintings, found in various parts of the world, predate written language by tens of thousands of years, with some examples dating back as far as 73,000 years ago.
Today with all of our technical advancements there are people (artists) who still desire to communicate their most profound thoughts and ideas through imagery created with artistic mediums. Our technologies today include AI produced images. It is my deep belief that feeding words into a computer that then “produces” and image will never reach the level of human-to-human connection that physical “creation” does.
There, in those two words, lies the difference. Creating starts in the brain with imagination, builds into a concept or idea then the “magic” happens. The artists whole life experience, skill development, emotions, stored memories…etc. unique to that artist contributes to the way a work is created and its overall individual expression. A computer produces imagery based solely on copying what it has been given. Production is mechanical and repetitive, creating is simply not. The human element is lost.
So, art and the artists role in today’s society is to expend art history and continue to create work that will provide deep emotional connection from one human to another. I believe it is needed now, at this point in time, more than any other.
If you could collaborate with any artist, dead or alive, who would it be with and why?
Although I have most studied the techniques of the Italian, Spanish and Dutch masters and their techniques are deeply rooted in my work, and the contemporary artist, I have been most influenced by is Mark Ryden, I am going to say Salvador Dali. Undeniably my work is psychological, it delves into the workings of the human brain. I am completely fascinated by it.
Dali went to places in creating imagery that no one had before. Taping into memory, dreams and the subconscious mind while applying great artistic skill. While his social, political, and misogynistic reputation is certainly something to consider, I would still be entirely intrigued to collaborate with him.
His own brain being a prime example of the strange and mysterious unknowns that can be buried in a human mind. It would be totally unbelievable to see where he would take the ideas that drive my own work.
What do you think is the single most important piece of advice you have been given as an artist?
Wow, well I suppose in the vast sea of bad advice I have been given, there are a few pieces of good advice that I consider important to me. One that came to mind first was said to me by a professor I went to for a critique long after graduating with my MFA…
“Stop doing what you think you should be doing just because you can. Stop letting your abilities, skills and what you think has salability get in the way of allowing your work to be a true reflection of who you are, what you truly think, feel, and want to express. When you do, you’ll start creating art.”
Join cutting-edge artists from around the world
The Beautiful Bizarre Artist Directory is a powerful tool for artists looking to grow their visibility, and connect with fellow artists, curators and collectors. To join the Beautiful Bizarre Artist Directory click here for more information.
