Once the work has been completed and installed, it is as if I were delivering it, the serenity that it gave me to create it is the same that I would like to give to others.
I always think of Michelangelo and his unfinished works which are those in which I have found greater completeness: in the sketches, in the unfinished works I have found the true concept of accomplished.
If I tell you Unfinished what’s the first thing that comes to your mind?
Something too intimate comes to mind that I prefer to keep for myself.
Unfinished what colour/shape is it?
The colours that come to mind are orange and green, colours that have no boundaries … I like them very much and they constitute a single green-orange colour for me.
Is there something you have left undone in your life?
The studies I wanted to do at the Academy of Fine Arts. I arrived there as an adult, after graduation, not completing the course, at the time I felt that if done in the right way and at the right time maybe it would have been my path. I already had a technical education, the rules imparted by my previous studies had somehow caged my creativity. At the Academy I wanted my passion for creation to take shape, it was the densest period artistically speaking. For the rest I feel fulfilled in what I do, I don’t worry about the judgment of others. Once the work is finished and installed, it is as if I were handing it over to others, the serenity that it gave me to create it is the same that I would like to give to others.
What is your relationship with unfinished things?
Sometimes it creates anxiety. There was a shape that made me suffer a lot – it became a real obsession for a year. I was trying all the time to make that shape until I finally did it. That was the only work that for a long time I considered unfinished. I work a lot with quantity, the installations have many elements (eg 600-700 flowers) and I think that for some, much less would be enough, but I would always add more and more.
In other moments I am absolutely serene even if I know I have not completed the work, which could have other scenarios, take another form. I know it is unfinished, I recognize it, but it is not for me, I don’t need to look for the finite.
Something unfinished that you would like finished?
For me everything is planned, I never think I will not be able to do it or finish it, I think I will. I grind projects, I need to always have a variety of projects in mind when I don’t have a horizon I feel lost. For me, it’s all a constant work to get to my project, to my finished ones. There is no unfinished in my path, it can suffer a setback, but then I recover it. Sometimes I fall out of love with something and abandon it but it is only temporary, over time I regain interest and sometimes I start from scratch.
Your favourite fertilizer?
A fertilizer is a curiosity, I am extremely curious since I was a child my family called me “monkey”. I have a taste for discovery, to know more and more. I always tell my students: “look, enter, discover; from unexpected places, unexpected things, the greatest things can come”.
3 words that you would match with unfinished?
Form, sign and idea.
Something that you find of value precisely because it is unfinished?
I always think of Michelangelo and his unfinished works which are those in which I have found greater completeness: in the sketches, in the unfinished works I have found the true concept of accomplished.
Where do you keep your unfinished works?
They are there waiting for me. They are a bit scattered at home, in my garage and even in dear places, entrusted to a dear friend. Now and then I tell her: “Later on you will give it back to me”. And when she sees that I am stuck with something, she asks “Will you give it to me?”. I trust her – when I want to have it back, she will give it back to me.
When is work done for you?
When I feel it is complete. When its vision creates that emotion and feeling that makes me recognize it as complete, it is a physical sensation, like falling in love. It’s over when it gives me something back. When what it gives me is this great emotion, an emotion that I feel in front of other works of art, a very strong sensation, my heart starts beating. I remember this emotion at the Athens Museum of Classical Art when I saw some classical artefacts, even unfinished works, hints of bas-reliefs and artefacts… tears fell unconsciously.