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Riccardo Basaglia

Riccardo Basaglia – Drawing to discover

26 - 04 - 2023

Art is, for Riccardo Basaglia, a way of discovering new things. His drawings arise from the confluence of themes and cultures, but also of techniques and tools. His is a curious and open mind, as well as a creative one. The result is rich works, almost explosive in their vitality.

Riccardo, tell us about your training. How did you approach art?

I am completely self-taught and I have not received any art education since middle school. Until then I had attended steinerian schools, where children are very stimulated to express themselves artistically, but with the transition to high school I went on alone. I never had anyone to guide or advise me. All the techniques I use, for example, I learnt from online tutorials. At first I used watercolours and my subjects were mainly landscapes and natural elements, then I moved towards acrylics, which have a more powerful impact on the paper, and I ended up mixing both techniques.

In the training of an artist, culture and sources of inspiration count even before techniques. What are yours?

I have never lacked sources of inspiration, fortunately. Initially, I was mainly inspired by nature, as I said, while later I developed a growing interest in technology. Coming from a Steinerian school, it was a kind of revelation for me that came in high school: I had never seen an electronic blackboard, for example! This advent of technology in my life has had an effect on my drawings. As with the techniques, in the case of the subjects I tried to combine two different areas: naturalistic contexts and technological elements. There is a bit of a tendency to divide the so-called ‘manual’ works and those obtained with technological aids. Instead, I try to bring everything together, particularly with the work I am working on these days. I drew a natural landscape, then I scanned it and added digital files: an operation only possible by combining the two approaches. The result satisfies me. My goal is to create works of this kind, but in which the technical aspect is not too conspicuous: I want harmonious, pleasant works.

After all, technology is also the fruit of human creativity.

Exactly. On the contrary, today the development of artificial intelligence makes it more and more complicated to understand how much is the direct result of human work and how much is produced by a programme (no longer just by a programme). In my opinion, one should not distinguish so sharply. Artificial intelligence can be used as a tool to bring an idea to fruition, one has to learn how to use it.

Talking of ideas, you draw on a very vast imaginary world…

Japanese culture, which is very interesting precisely because it is so different from ours, had a great influence on me. Here too, I have sought a possibility of encounter, merging elements from different cultures and searching for symbolism akin to western culture. Cyberpunk is inspired precisely by the most developed cities in Asia where, in a futuristic dystopian scenario, the control of technology has gotten out of hand and nature is almost absent. The immersion effect I try to convey with my drawings is aimed at a search for a possible communion between technology and nature that would make sustainable technological development possible in an ideal future. I then discovered that there are several sub-genres of cyberpunk, which amazed me. Here, my drawings are born from discoveries and always push me to discover new things. For example, I am now studying charcoal, something far removed from what I have done so far. It’s curiosity that moves me. I like to know, to learn and to imagine.

Discover Riccardo Basaglia’s artworks!

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