KONTRAPUNKT

R: I did not choose this; it started with self-monitoring and observation of my demeanour and reactions because I noticed that in some situations, I do not behave the way I planned before. There I found it hard to articulate my thoughts without somebody misunderstanding me. I am very curious about why this can happen when talking to people close to me. So I started by facing myself, trying to understand what people can read on my face when talking to me.

R: During my self-observations, I realized that I often follow my old patterns in a conversation, and maybe this pulls me back from solving my dilemmas. My reactions have much more components than I could imagine, making the challenge even more complex.

R: The kombucha leather I was using in these series came accidentally from my original curiosity about bio-design. In the last few years, I had broad research about my roots and what makes me the woman I am. I observed the rivers under my skin guiding many of my actions, and I was seeking a medium which could visualize this invisible relationship. I knew immediately when I saw this material that I had found something to play with. A little bit weird, or even disgusting, transparent, changes through the years and grows from nature very slowly like human beings.

R: After scanning some of my characteristic faces, I identified my specific feelings; the roles played in different situations. The words I wrote under the skin pieces have all been detected in me during the last months. Some of them surprised me. The only rule in this game was to be honest, and suspicious with myself. This list of components is very thought-provoking, like facing a mirror. I hope the answers to my questions are behind it.

L: Maybe the currently exhibited pieces are visually closer to a classic jewellery collection than my previous works, although they also have a conceptual background. This time I used precious metal, pearls, minerals, so more well-known ‘jewellery materials’ than before.

L: At first sight, the pieces could be only pretty jewellery if one superficially looks at them but after thinking and knowing more about them, under this surface, they show us a much deeper, darker and frustrating layer, the state of unbalance.

J: I have been interested in all religions and their art from the very beginning. Living with religion and living for religion and faith – why do people choose to do this? And each religion has its own aesthetic expression. Monastery works, mandalas, huge gods carved into huge mountains … all made out of love, respect – in inner satisfaction and devotion. My religion is nature – good and evil. Yin and yang.

J: Sometimes working on it is like a kind of inner reflection. It sometimes has an almost religious aspect. It can be absolutely relaxing, exciting, but sometimes also painful and destructive – like true inner love …

J: The materials sometimes find me, sometimes I find them … on walks, while shopping, at work – out there, in fact. Every now and then, friends and family also send me things that they think I would like to transform.

J: … everyday life helps me in my artistic process! Seeing, observing. Birth, blossoming, withering, death … and rebirth. – absolutely breathtaking, isn’t it?!

J: This is simply my inner intuition – nothing more and nothing less. I don’t think when I create. I let my inner self work. My hands only translate.

J: I can’t say. I show them now and then, and every now and then one of the pieces finds a new home. So far all sold pieces have been worn as well as presented as artwork on the wall or shelf. But they are also welcome to stay with me for a while longer. I like to look at them and associate good and bad moments with them – just life.

LI: I make very very little. And more and more I find myself questioning how I make and refining how I relate to the making/visual aspect of my practice. As for materials, I never buy them unless absolutely strictly necessary (I did a little more in the very beginning) or they are reclaimed for reuse. I tend to collect stuff as I go and sometimes I am also gifted some, which really interests me. Over the years I have become really questioning of what and where I gather materials, and the connection between search and research, and finding and finding oneself, is one of the big aspects of my personal research focus.

LI: My practice spans making, writing, mentoring, teaching, researching and, more recently, curating. So yes, sometimes I have to work on several projects at the same time. But my practice is now based on questioning, and every manifestation of my work drives the next. For example, I found the courage to complete the final piece for Kontrapunkt in the way I wanted through writing a conference lecture which I will be delivering the week after the exhibition. And writing my answers here is helping clarify aspects of that lecture. So everything is driven by the line of research and of questioning, which is constantly moving but also constantly intersecting, if that makes sense…

L: I guess everything manifests in words for me before it does in any other way. I am also the person that reads all the labels everywhere. Any text that accompanies my visual work, from the title, to the statement, to even the list of materials, is an absolute intrinsic and indivisible part of it. It is my final reflection and it allows me to explore and understand the full extent of that visual manifestation. Normally, it is a reflection on the process of thinking and learning that has happened through the making and how it has changed me or that visual manifestation along the way.

Text also allows me a precision of expression that I could not achieve otherwise. It is when choosing exact words that I get to the bottom of what everything else means. Interestingly, it does this in my adopted language (English), and never in my mother tongue (Italian). And then there’s the full sharing with the viewer of that understanding: again an intrinsic and indivisible part of my practice. The visual and the written are manifestations of my thinking and my questioning. And to me it is nothing unless it is public and shared. And of course text has become a huge part of my work through the writing aspect of my practice. Writing is just another manifestation of my thinking and my learning and growing and questioning.

L: The project I am exhibiting here was conceived to express what we give up in life, at any time, in order to let something or someone else thrive. So there’s the basic Kontrapunkt narrative. But here I will be showing this project in its evolution from 2015, the last year of my Bachelor, to now to show how art practice is in constant movement. An artist is not a ready-made product and my practice has been in constant flux to the point that I am now starting to question the object-based visual aspect of it. Here I want the viewer to be confronted with the inner conflicts of art practice: the early aspirations, the reality of having to compromise and hating the work you produce as a consequence, and even the inability to create something because you have moved on, which in itself brings a new awareness and new horizons and questions to explore. And this brings me to the questions that revealed themselves: What does it mean to be an artist? How is my practice redefining itself around this question? What do I even call myself?

L: This is a really interesting question for me. No, I never return to pieces that are finished, although I never stop reflecting, questioning and learning from the process and thinking behind their making. This project was always unfinished for me, and the reason I decided to exhibit it is exactly to show how the practice of art is being in constant flux. It was a great opportunity to reflect on, but above all to show viewers the reorientation in my goals and aspirations, that new developments don’t always mean progress, and how dramatically my practice has changed over the years.

V: I am very curious about this and exploring the boundaries of this field is essential for me. In this collection, the initial idea relates to jewellery, as I wanted to recreate a box of jewellery which was stolen from my grandmother. So I started to make objects for my women ancestors who were long dead. Wearability became redundant, and the whole process was complete freedom of any rules, a flow of creation, and a reconnection. But the starting point is a solid connection to sentimental jewellery objects; therefore, I call these pieces jewellery. I am interested in the change a piece can cause in you both as a maker and as a viewer. And more importantly, my interest is in the connection between the viewer and the maker.

V: In my first attempt, I made various sizes of objects, but I wanted a strong connection between these creations. I wanted them to be recognisably one collection and so I started to use identical frames. But I realised that on the one hand, I was giving myself complete freedom, even freedom of wearability, yet I was creating new rules using the same form and size of frames. So in a way, it made me realise that I cannot let myself be free from limitations: I create my own ones – which is also true in my personal life.

V: I have this idea that there is a transgenerational message that travels in my family, especially among the female members, that something terrible has to happen before we can have joy or happiness. I think many of us carry similar stories, tragedies that occurred in the lives of the previous generations and traumas that we inherit. Overcoming the pain is a very important message I treasure from them.

V: I used a robust frame that holds a very thin copper foil within every piece in the collection. I was playing with the coexistence of the strong and the fragile. And also, you can see that there is a problem, a tragedy with an attempt to solve it, but it is obviously unsolved: the pain just became the protagonist of the piece. But these are not messages: they are just tools for a conversation.

V: Yes, I understood this vital connection between my fragility and my strength: I can see it in my children too. And also, this project was, in many ways, about freedom. I realised that I can allow myself to create in a state of complete flow, and I was able to get rid of uncomfortable compromises, which also helps my motherhood. My making process often reflects what I am dealing with in my everyday life. So it was a process of self-understanding in many ways.

V: I have many boxes with unfinished but potentially interesting previous projects. I like to go back and revisit these pieces. I have no objects from my family and this absence of inheritance gave me the idea and was the inspiration for this current exhibition.