sabato 27 febbraio 2021
lunedì 22 giugno 2009
review
Almost like birth and death, childhood and the old age are two areas bordering directly, evoked by Isabella Lotti of the sideral distance of her 30 years: children with old eyes or old women with a child's body, inadequate, fragile and alienated in that violent and unclear adult background. Of which we can see with disarming lucidity all the absurdities, misery, rudeness but also unavoidabality, not being able to cope with any way the abuse of power.
Isabella Lotti, little girl in tutù, ready for her dance show or better for her gallows, recalls ancestral, high/middle class state of soul, if it is permitted this comparison. Almost like a scream of degluted Munch, indifferent but doted with charm.
A charm later refound almost with amazement, releasing a surge of self therapy on casual surfaces and imperfections "like life", using pencils, chalks and wax crayons - instruments which immediacy recalls drawing precisely about childhood.
Francesco Ventura
review
Isabella Lotti, talks about the sense of her femminility, looking into the memory of her soul, everyday existance, images that present desire, emotions, love, described as if in a dream, as they appear on a film set one after the other, slowly to amaze us, allowing us to enter when it's our turn. In this world of sentiment, as if suspended between reality and finction of the opera of art.
Again, Isabella Lotti is proof of how the simplicity of female image colours like a rainbow and a collection in the contemplation of its interior universe and is able to overcome the complex of being contemporary-contradictary, contort, uneasy, latent truth and wanted disguise.
Her female figures, in a tale without time, emerge in backgrounds of uniform colour, almost not distract the observer from the heart of the rapresentation. Fragile images like hope, subtle like accentuated desire that insinuate the folds of the soul and they talk to us about life of the artist, of her being woman. A living femminility, contagious af artistic expression which gives back sublime.
Arduino Boar
interview by Antonella Sartori, ambienticreativi
When I meet her, she's preparing our dinner in her home/studio in the historical centre of Mantova. High on the cieling we can distinguish pieces of frescoes in memory of Ducal. Opposite us almost at the table, a coloured figure doesn't stop glaring at us, she silenzes me and all of a sudden in the room no-one talks. A moment of reflection in silence.That's the moment I understand without any doubt-opposite me there was a talent out of this world. I look at her and see a polite young woman, with delicate ways just like in the sails of her portraits, a generous narrator of the story of her life.
I ask her how her life enters in her work. Isabella answers me:
"Everything an so much" she continues..."I wanted to represent the discomfort of the soul when I feel suffocated in an angrily way and in the first part of my work there is a visual manifestation of inertia, a heavy sensation of being unsuitable for life that oozes from human pale figures without lymphs. The bodies are white, deformed, heavy looking, without sense, marked by a thick draft that works as a background for a series of images interconnecting fear, closing, incompleteness and inferiority towards a world thought of as dangerous, untouchable and impossible to reach".
Does the title indicate which direction your work is orientated towards?
"Yes, like for Bolla the spectator is accompained in a bubble of liquid-one which first fills up the lungs and then the rest slowly and relentlessly until subjecting the existance. Immersed in outof time limbo nevertheless the figures find peace and rest. Only in this sealed environment inside and welcoming - a sort of maternal- that the subject is aware of itself and of its shadow, finding fertile land to prime a reaction, to reach a positive possibility. The first step towards harmony between itself and the world."
The conversation goes well past the cofee and she goes to internet point where her four-legged friends Pericle (pet dog) and Mimma (favourite cat of the courtyard) check me out. Isabella confirms her messages, night appointments, her chats with friends and she shows me photos. With her computer she is always in touch with them even though the three lakes of Mantova in the fog sometimes seem to surround her as if she was on an island. We sit down in front of a 50's style desk to concentrate and talk about her work, neglecting for a few hours, love, friendship and politics.
Is the body you portray a place of a precise identity?
"My interest in the body is guarded by a journey of a possible identity. I look at the body to find answers, courage, sincerity, immediancy of a direct confrontation and instinctive without meditation, portraying a snapshot of myself never defined."
The link with reality - is it a part of a process which brings on desire?
"The pshyco-physics state of a portrayed figure is reduced to zero. There's no interaction with the outside, without being considered figuratively but left bare the support panel. The desire would like to be a towing engine but hidden and cannot seduce."
You represent figures in diluted and sobre backgrounds - don't you ask for such effects from the spectators?
"Not directly, It's a very intimate journey. A pictorial journey which has photographed the first two stages of maturation of the individual. It's the story of a badly treated and betrayed child with difficulty beacame ab adult. There is a spell, at the certain moment the chains disappear, the emptiness becomes colourful, the marks pronounced become soft and sweet - harmonious bodies and the mystery has vanished and the soul has healed."
A repetitive element is characteristic of your language - suspension - a sort of "suspended portrait". In suspension unites him to the others. How was this narrative process formed?
"In my paintings you explore a sort of no man's land, or better, it's about mind space, abstract, where only the perception of emotions are coloured."
There is a rythm in the works of the series children which seem to scan the never ending discovery of loss. Can you explain to me in which way you stop the flow of movement?
"It's a kind of linguistic evolution. The portrait develops and it becomes a frame-fragments of past life. The small girls, transparent, with few clothes find themeselves in a saturated enviroment and full of coloured air, emotions and their spirit of soul, arrogance and deafness. They are dismayed by a withered and conscious look, no more dreams nor magic, no more innocence nor surprises. Stationary in the loss that it moves. The still images narrate where pain has just discovered that in life there are two secrets. I point out the delusion and patience as power engines take possesion of your own space."
The representation of inadeguateness of solitude can be found in a pretty description of other times, are there masters in the history of art in your journey of inspiration?
"Regarding this part I didn't cause myself any problems. It's about very personal work, and if we want cathartic but surely I find a sourc of inspiration in expressionism to accentuate the role of the subject and its emotions. I believe communication and expression assume an important and fundamental role in the conception of work of art."
Now it's late. I'll ask you what are the last three films, books and places that you remember or would like to remember. Answer me quickly.
"Lake Toba in Sumatra, Indonesia. New York, Scottish Highlands. Books: Journey to the end of night, Celine.The furious Orlando, Ariosto. Pig with wings, Ravera. Films: A clockwork orange by Kubrik. Underground, Kusturika, Alice in the cities of Wenders and Ordet by Dreyer."
She looks around, smiles at Pericle and says she will be able to go out in a few minutes.
Mantova, May 2009
I ask her how her life enters in her work. Isabella answers me:
"Everything an so much" she continues..."I wanted to represent the discomfort of the soul when I feel suffocated in an angrily way and in the first part of my work there is a visual manifestation of inertia, a heavy sensation of being unsuitable for life that oozes from human pale figures without lymphs. The bodies are white, deformed, heavy looking, without sense, marked by a thick draft that works as a background for a series of images interconnecting fear, closing, incompleteness and inferiority towards a world thought of as dangerous, untouchable and impossible to reach".
Does the title indicate which direction your work is orientated towards?
"Yes, like for Bolla the spectator is accompained in a bubble of liquid-one which first fills up the lungs and then the rest slowly and relentlessly until subjecting the existance. Immersed in outof time limbo nevertheless the figures find peace and rest. Only in this sealed environment inside and welcoming - a sort of maternal- that the subject is aware of itself and of its shadow, finding fertile land to prime a reaction, to reach a positive possibility. The first step towards harmony between itself and the world."
The conversation goes well past the cofee and she goes to internet point where her four-legged friends Pericle (pet dog) and Mimma (favourite cat of the courtyard) check me out. Isabella confirms her messages, night appointments, her chats with friends and she shows me photos. With her computer she is always in touch with them even though the three lakes of Mantova in the fog sometimes seem to surround her as if she was on an island. We sit down in front of a 50's style desk to concentrate and talk about her work, neglecting for a few hours, love, friendship and politics.
Is the body you portray a place of a precise identity?
"My interest in the body is guarded by a journey of a possible identity. I look at the body to find answers, courage, sincerity, immediancy of a direct confrontation and instinctive without meditation, portraying a snapshot of myself never defined."
The link with reality - is it a part of a process which brings on desire?
"The pshyco-physics state of a portrayed figure is reduced to zero. There's no interaction with the outside, without being considered figuratively but left bare the support panel. The desire would like to be a towing engine but hidden and cannot seduce."
You represent figures in diluted and sobre backgrounds - don't you ask for such effects from the spectators?
"Not directly, It's a very intimate journey. A pictorial journey which has photographed the first two stages of maturation of the individual. It's the story of a badly treated and betrayed child with difficulty beacame ab adult. There is a spell, at the certain moment the chains disappear, the emptiness becomes colourful, the marks pronounced become soft and sweet - harmonious bodies and the mystery has vanished and the soul has healed."
A repetitive element is characteristic of your language - suspension - a sort of "suspended portrait". In suspension unites him to the others. How was this narrative process formed?
"In my paintings you explore a sort of no man's land, or better, it's about mind space, abstract, where only the perception of emotions are coloured."
There is a rythm in the works of the series children which seem to scan the never ending discovery of loss. Can you explain to me in which way you stop the flow of movement?
"It's a kind of linguistic evolution. The portrait develops and it becomes a frame-fragments of past life. The small girls, transparent, with few clothes find themeselves in a saturated enviroment and full of coloured air, emotions and their spirit of soul, arrogance and deafness. They are dismayed by a withered and conscious look, no more dreams nor magic, no more innocence nor surprises. Stationary in the loss that it moves. The still images narrate where pain has just discovered that in life there are two secrets. I point out the delusion and patience as power engines take possesion of your own space."
The representation of inadeguateness of solitude can be found in a pretty description of other times, are there masters in the history of art in your journey of inspiration?
"Regarding this part I didn't cause myself any problems. It's about very personal work, and if we want cathartic but surely I find a sourc of inspiration in expressionism to accentuate the role of the subject and its emotions. I believe communication and expression assume an important and fundamental role in the conception of work of art."
Now it's late. I'll ask you what are the last three films, books and places that you remember or would like to remember. Answer me quickly.
"Lake Toba in Sumatra, Indonesia. New York, Scottish Highlands. Books: Journey to the end of night, Celine.The furious Orlando, Ariosto. Pig with wings, Ravera. Films: A clockwork orange by Kubrik. Underground, Kusturika, Alice in the cities of Wenders and Ordet by Dreyer."
She looks around, smiles at Pericle and says she will be able to go out in a few minutes.
Mantova, May 2009
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