Young artists succeed in a wild but stimulating environment.
“The first impression I had when I moved from Berlin to London was that of a city stronger than me” says Rebecca Salvadori, a filmmaker originally from Milan, who moved to London in 2010. She had to start fighting “using some sort of camouflage tactics in order to survive its strict rules”. London as described by Rebecca is not the usual sparkling tourist postcard, not the city that attracts masses of tourists. During my research of Italian artists based in London, I have realized how much this city has affected their work, giving them different and new perspectives, adding often a certain feeling of strangeness. Salvadori talks about survival, but we could say that something else has happened since her arrival to pursue a Masters at Goldsmiths College: collaborations and exhibitions at the Serpentine Gallery and the Barbican Arts Centre.
” Chaos and silence, the same contrast - in a different way- seems to have also influenced the work of the Venetian artist Giulia Zaniol “
She mainly deals
with video art and in one of her latest projects - euroemptiness she investigates the nature of digital images and their impact on reception. A research that has its roots in the contrast of our - especially visual - present information overload meets the desire to silence, to a peaceful emptiness: “moving to London has had a strong influence on this drastic swap.” Chaos and silence, the same contrast - in a completely different way- seems to have also influenced the work of the Venetian artist Giulia Zaniol - who will premiere her London solo-exhibition in November- especially in the series of prints Angels of London. It is a series of original prints, signed and created as a limited edition: “The aim was to depict my new city: this was initially quite a lonely place so these prints tend to have a quite solitary atmosphere.” Giulia received the title of Royal Etcher in 2013: a notable title in printmaking as it establishes her as a full member of the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers. Currently, her works are exposed in three collections: the Ashmolean Museum of Oxford, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and Clifford Chance in London. If the streets of London are inhabited by melancholy angels, those of the artist and photographer Marta Primavera, from Arezzo, are inhabited just by herself. London Refurbishment is a project begun in 2012 that investigates the exact relationship she had before she was a tourist and then as a resident in London: “As a tourist through time I walk the streets of London trying to interpret its characters”, she says. What has changed during time? Have we improved our quality of life? Are we aware of the changes that this city is bringing to our habits? These are just some of the many questions that her photomontages seem to provoke. Francesco Caradonna, photographer born in Taranto - storyteller, video maker and much more - has clear ideas about London and its paradoxes:
“London is wild, violent and hypocritical” but at the same time “the market is full of energy and thus opportunities for realizing projects”.
He has exhibited his works at the Fiumano Gallery, one of the London galleries that promote both Italian and English art. Currently there is a showing of his photographs at the Italian Embassy, Decadent Still Life, where nostalgia and memory for Italian landscapes collides and is enriched with London, but also with the suggestions of Cornwall and the Orcia Valley. His photographs have both an inherent sadness and a strength so intense to be able to arrest a momentum.
WHAT IS “NEW”?
Francesco Caradonna “The sense that fascinates me most of about the term new is the extraordinary inside. As in a dream, breaking the ordinariness can be determined by an intuition of consciousness or a strong push to a deep analysis of something from the soul”.
Marta Primavera “The word ‘new’ is something that brings out the man from his everyday life to give his heart longing, desire for knowledge and the search for something beyond, of an elsewhere beyond any kind of experience”.
Rebecca Salvadori “Change is an important aspect of my research. I collaborate with many different people, this leads me to be constantly subjected to other ways of dealing with the creative process as well as new experiences. That is powerful”.
Giulia Zaniol “We are witnessing a revolution: there are now, more than ever, millions of possibilities in terms of techniques. It’s exciting to see what we can now achieve thanks to the reviving of traditional techniques and their combination with new media”.
THREE TIMES ONCE
After just two years working as a solo artist, Santo Tolone (Como, 1979) has had his first solo show in the UK: “Three times once” at Limoncello Gallery in the animated East London area of Hoxton (he was previously part of the collaborations Mr Rossi and Santomatteo). Santo Tolone studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts of Brera, Milan, and later studied for his MA Fine Art at the Slade School of Fine Art, London, where now he is based. His art has been described as “playfully provocative” and his minimalism labelled “peculiar” and “particular” by Frieze Magazine. “Three times once” displays the same work reinvented in three identical size rooms: the spectator is finely invited to reflect in the experience of things, in different shapes and times.
