She calls herself permeable, Maria Paola Grifone. Permeable to so many stimuli, from a shadow on a wall to a news story, which she feels the need to investigate through art. Painting in order to know, then, as she explains in very clear words.
Maria Paola, can you tell us about your path?
I went to a traditional art school, where they still drew a lot, and perhaps that is why I am so attached to copying from life. Later I attended a course for fashion designers, but I realised that I was more interested in fashion illustration than in making models, so I decided to enrol at the Academy of Fine Arts. Here I took the painting course and was able to deepen my artistic identity, including through exhibitions and everything that revolved around that environment.
What techniques do you usually use?
It depends a lot on the periods. The different techniques I use are united by their immediacy of execution. So, for example, Indian ink on glossy paper allows me a direct execution; I don’t need to make sketches or study the subject, what happens on paper is the result of a continuous flow between me, the subject itself and what I use to represent it, in this case Indian ink. In this last period I am using charcoal, fusage, powdered graphite on paper or prepared canvas. Let’s say that I use extremes of matter: Indian ink is very liquid, and glides on paper, while graphite powder, or charcoal, are dry materials, i.e. the exact opposite. I still don’t understand if there is a reason for my going from one extreme to the other. In any case, for me technique cannot be distinguished from content. If I use oil or acrylic, for example, it is because what I want to express can only be expressed with oil or acrylic. This game of ‘opposites’ has led me to the essentiality of black and white, which has become indispensable for my expressive needs. It is a contrast that brings out the most human contradictions: life and death, light and darkness… everything that we are.
What are your sources of inspiration?
It is not easy to answer this question. Let’s say I am slowly discovering them, I am becoming aware of them. I find inspiration by observing reality, starting with objects, or faces, for example. I have done some work on shadows on walls, to give another example. I realised that when my gaze rests on something, I have to investigate.
Lately I have been attracted to topical issues, so I am working on war and suffering. In this case my sources are the media, from newspapers to the web. I look for and look at endless images, everywhere.
I am also inspired by music – which I listen to daily – music videos, or films. Even a conversation or an article can stimulate me, perhaps to reflect on a social or psychological aspect. I am very permeable.
I like to look, I like to listen, and if something strikes me I feel the need to explore it and represent it.
Currently on cinquerossoarte.com there are The Hidden Forms, Equilibrium, Inside Me and Black Vase. What can you tell us about these works?
They are objects represented from life, with which I have an emotional connection. What they have in common is that they are containers. They are not empty, in short. I liked to play – once again – with opposites: the full and the empty in a white, almost eternal space, without connotations. The technique I used, Indian ink on photographic paper, allowed me to achieve that immediacy I mentioned. It is a non-control that leaves room for what freely happens while I paint, even when it comes to ‘mistakes’: often it is these that surprise me and take the image where I want it. It is a technique of realisation, but it is also a metaphor for life, which works just like this, for unforeseen events and smudges.
What are you working on at the moment?
At the moment I am investigating a very hot topic, which is the relationship between man and technology. What I feel is emerging and what I represent is a humanity that, faced with complexity, seeks an escape route. They are figures immersed in a physical void, with a lot of white underlining this distance between us and reality. You will soon see them on cinquerossoarte.com.
