A free art, wandering amongst thoughts, moving from elaborated concepts to impalpable sensations. Andrea Marchesini started his journey on a large table covered in paper and is still going “somewhere, nowhere”.

What is the first word that comes to mind thinking of your works?

Honestly, many come to mind, yet the one that condenses them all is “travel”, as a journey within oneself. A journey where the destination is not important, getting there is not important. What matters are the stops. A bit like a caravan in a desert, which benefits from the oases in order to go on forever. All of this functions for the development of a creative thought, which is looking for answers to the questions one has been asking since forever.

This is what painting is to me: the consequence of a thought, a lifestyle, a mirror of the artist himself.

From where does your creative action start?

Mine is a constant “stream of consciousness” like Joyce’s, composed by infinite flashbacks that make images appear to which I try to give sense. My paintings are not traditional paintings, they are creations: there is a lot of colour, a lot of textiles, but also materials like chalk and stucco. The work is done when I find a balance between my inner world and the harmony of shapes, colour and weight of the work. When my works are near the end, yet “something” is still missing, I put them all in a semi-circle in front of the couch in my studio, I sit down and I look at them in silence. I basically familiarize with my own works, until I understand how to complete it in order to find the balance I was mentioning before.

Could you give us an example of how a painting or an artistic project is born?

Let us take for example the series “Frankenstein 2.0”. Those paintings were born from my reflection: humanity, in order to evolve and thus reach the next stage, must de-structure itself – as in a puzzle – and then put together the pieces in a different way. Mary Shelley’s monster was really a positive step towards human evolution, a step higher. This is why to create these pieces I took old works I had left unfinished, I cut out some pieces to which I gave a new shape and I put them back together on a new canvas, to obtain a unicum. The same happens for colours. I use oil, varnishes, and acrylics. Oil and varnish have synthetic bases, while the acrylic is water-based: they are therefore substances that reject each other. And once again I look to harmonize the opposites.

More than painting, I am creating. My disposition is to be against the “single thought” and in favour of individuality and free artistic expression. And one may grasp this also from the environment I work in. my studio is isolated in the middle of wheat fields and vineyards, in absolute tranquillity. Inside, on the contrary, it is a sort of alchemic laboratory, a great chaos where – in order to move – one must open up a way through books, paintings, objects, colours, puppets, masks… this is my shelter, my safety. From being a creative space it transformed into a place, which is a completely different thing. It is my “Somewhere-Nowhere”, which is also the name of the project I am working on at the moment.

What is it about?

“Somewhere-Nowhere” is the title of an exhibition I am preparing for the MA-EC gallery in Milan, which will open to the public in May. For the works I am creating I get my inspiration from my own Neverland, which is “somewhere” yet also “nowhere”.

Would you tell us briefly about your artistic story?

I basically grew up in my mother’s atelier. My education came from life in an art studio rather than from academies. There is an anecdote I love to tell. When my sister and I were around 4 or 5 years old, my mother used to cover up a large table with paper, threw on top of it crayons and felt pens and told us: «Now, have fun! ». So, I spent my days drawing and colouring every centimetre. It is something that influenced my growth, to the point that even today I favour the large. That creative freedom, that infinite space to fill… are still inside me.

Discover Andrea Marchesini’s artworks!

Passionate about architecture, Mauro Sini looks for essential lines, sharp and precise shapes also for his photographs. It is a study of the void, to explore following one’s inner rhythm.

Mauro, how did you meet photography?

I met it relatively late, when I was 34. Before that, being very attracted to architecture I started studying at university, but left soon enough. My love for photography was born when I was a kid, when I had the luck of having access to a very old camera, from around the beginning of the XX century, and that opened a whole world for me. Then that love was abandoned and picked up again when I was 34, when I decided I wanted to be a photographer. In this transition I was helped by my two teachers; one is Flavio Renzetti, sculptor and painter, the other is Massimo Costoli, photographer. Massimo, in particular, opened my mind and changed my way of thinking and watching from a photographic point of view. Anyhow, it is thanks to him that I discovered who the Mauro Sini photographer is. Since then, I have followed a career as a fashion and interior design photographer and on the side I kept up my artistic search.

Architecture is still in your life, though, as many of your subjects are buildings.

Yes, architectural photography is almost a need. I look for lines and sharpness. I often voluntarily exclude the human figure, unless it has a purpose in the context I am portraying. I love to study the space, which is by the way what has always fascinated me in architecture. What I do in my photographs is to attempt to delimit the void, cutting out spaces in an emptiness, from my very personal point of view.

There also might be particular projects, such as Mitoraj, which I realized in Pompei, where the human figure is present, yet sublimated by the statues.

Anyway, my creativity is expressed like this, by taking away from the frame instead of inserting in the frame. Even in landscapes, in fact, I look for lines and essentiality.

Do you use colour as well or it always black and white?

I use colour only when black and white does not enhance the image. And if in black and white I often take advantage of the contrast, with colours I privilege the dark ones, I tend to tone them down. So, in my photography, colour is rare and when it is there, it is dense, never bright.

Actually, the pictures I take when I am at work, are always in colour, and quite often very bright. Black and white is my niche, my refuge, where everything works as I want and I can read in my own rhythm.

What is your method? Do you follow a plan or do you let your inspiration guide you?

Besides some specific projects, such as Mitoraj, I let myself be guided by what I see. Sometimes I go and look for intriguing places. I shoot what I see, and having always travelled for work I find myself often in very inspiring places, where I sometimes go back to take pictures in my own time. Now for instance, I am working on pictures of industrial archaeology realized in a ruin in Argentario, Tuscany, where I have every intention of going back to take pictures of the same places, yet at different times of day. This is a particularly structured project, but often my shots are casual: I walk around and I am struck by a shadow, by a reflections or the light coming through a window.

Discover Mauro Sini’s artworks!