Lucrezia Piscopo is the second joint winner of the Lazio regional final, Handicraft section of MArteLive 2021, the multi-disciplinary festival that involves multiple arts, from crafts, sculpture, music, theater, photography and many others, to create a single big event resulting from the synergy of several shows.
Art format born in 2001 in Rome, MArteLive, is an initiative of Giuseppe Casa, created together with a group of students from the Faculty of Economics of the RomaTre University and some young people from the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome. In 2011 it becomes BiennaleMArteLive, launching a totally innovative project, where for the first time the whole city of Rome is involved for six days and six nights, now involving about 60 different locations simultaneously including live clubs, theaters, galleries, monuments , walls, open spaces, squares, museums, libraries and cultural spaces, with almost 1,000 artists presented. Over the span of twenty years, MArteLive has become one of the most interesting cultural events on the Italian scene, offering a true showcase to unknown artists, a real laboratory for thousands of young Italian artists and beyond.
Madeinitalyfor.me, MArteLive partner, interviewed for you Lucrezia Piscopo, the creator ofLucrezia Piscopo Art, born and raised in Sicily, in a small hilltop village, near the sea called Favara and which is located a few steps from Agrigento. As we usually do in our interviews, we like to know who is behind the artist because she helps us to better understand the meaning of her art and her work. So let’s start with a simple but very open question…
Well, since I was a child I have had a strong propensity for art and growing up I have not abandoned this creative instinct. I wanted to follow the art world more closely since I was a child, perhaps with a dedicated course of study but I lacked the support of those around me and perhaps, consequently, even the trust. So I put my brushes aside for years and went on a huge tour, before realizing that not making art was pushing me to choose paths that were not mine and dictated mainly by living up to the expectations of others.
So I studied distant languages and cultures, passing through Siena and arriving in Taiwan, Chengdu and finally Rome. Among the different languages studied, Chinese is probably the one that most prompted me to rediscover painting, painting with a calligraphy brush on rice paper. But it was when the pandemic broke out that after a thousand jobs and in the midst of a PhD, I found myself, locked up at home, wondering what I was doing with my life. Knowing that there is a fact, linked to going away, to art, to the insecurities that have been a constant in my university years, namely my relationship with water and the sea.
As an off-site student, in fact, returning home meant returning to see that sea there that was mine and so familiar, where everything was possible and where letting my thoughts flow was natural. A sense of belonging, nostalgia and calm that helped me make my choices. And so it was that during the pandemic I started painting again and, for the first time, I opened an instagram profile to connect to the people around me, through abstract expressionism, the shades of blue and green that reminded me of my homeland, communicating that sense of nostalgia and calm that perhaps others, like me, needed. Deciding that art would become my work came as a consequence, for the first time without fear.
It is 2021 and my exploration of the art of resin and the reproduction of the sea in everyday objects begins, the year in which art and crafts walk together and lead me to win in the regional final of MArteLive. A great emotion that gave me the awareness that dreams come true and that the fear of failure is part of the game.
The most complex aspect is certainly that of knowing deeply the material that is used and the resin has so many characteristics to decide to dedicate 5 months of study just to know all its secrets, while for inspiration it was much simpler because it was already part of me and, as you can imagine, it leads back to “My sea”; that feeling that if I had to focus between the images of my memories, it would lead me to two magical moments, one in summer, in which the sand is hot and you run towards the shore where the water immediately refreshes your feet and the other of winter, when sitting on the beach at sunset, I find the balance and clarity I needed.
The technique of artistic resin processing called Fluid Art or Functional Art is a practice that comes mostly from Australia and the United States. The resin is mixed with the hardener and then works quickly since there is not exactly a very long time before it hardens completely. To create my works, I divide into glasses and colo different colors, using a heat gun and blowtorch, melt it and move it to my liking. A job to do with a filtered gas mask or at least an FFP2 mask. There are also many factors to take into consideration before starting the resin processing, such as the inclination of the work table, the temperature, the ventilation of the room, the humidity and the use of a high viscosity epoxy resin that can be suitable for food contact, since cutting boards, trays and bowls will obviously have direct contact with food.
The best part is the moment when the wave is created. Pour the white resin and start working with the heat gun at a certain angle, the white opens in cells and bubbles towards the blue and the wave is born, a process that can also be repeated several times to give depth to the sea. From there we wait at least 24 hours before complete crystallization, a period of time in which the objects must be kept and protected with containers or tables that avoid contact with the dust that is in the air. A bit like a baby when he sleeps, it requires constant monitoring.
In my immediate future, I intend to close the chapter of university research, concluding my research doctorate with a thesis, and then fully embrace this activity. In fact, I decided to listen to that little girl in me that I have always kept a bit hidden, enrolling in the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome next year. The truth is that in the past few years I have come to realize that it is never too late to be who you want to be.
So I moved to a new neighborhood in Rome, to a new house where I built my own studio that will be the place where all my new projects will come to life. I would like to learn to work on wooden tables and larger surfaces in which to pour my waves, recovering the wood no longer in use, transforming it into something special. I will certainly continue to paint and create the sea in new forms, hoping to take my waves far away and to those who want to remember all the sensations that the sea brings with it.
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