Visiting a friend’s studio is always stimulating and inspiring. Pino Guidolotti is a photographer I have known for many years. Now he lives in a small town in the south of Italy and does not make many photos anymore. But he is not only a photographer, he has also always been an incredible artist, building strange sculptures, crazy toys, making beautiful drawings and other things. When I go to the south in the summer and visit him, going to his studio is always a surprise. He takes photos of people, places and things out of his drawers, installing them on the walls, and it is always different. There are his drawings in black and white, the objects he recently made from painted wood, feathers and material she finds around. The stories that emerge from these juxtapositions are reminiscent of past times but also very exotic. His studio, full of books as well, is like a magic room.
I am a painter; I live in Italy. Italian Renaissance paintings are what I first looked at when I started painting. There are many painters I love from that period, but I chose this painting by Fra Angelico because it is so peaceful and, in this moment, I need to be reminded of peaceful things, the Tuscan light falling from the sky, the small flowers on the ground. This painting is not big, it is one panel of a predella under the story of San Nicola. I think what strikes me here is the architecture, like a series of big objects or theatre props that are enough to place the actors in their situations. It is very simple; nothing is useless, and it is also very descriptive and clear. The two rooms opening on the right and on the left of the painting are illuminated enough to see what happens inside. It is a bit like a theatre, and I think that is what I find inspiring.
I don’t remember when I first encountered these two figures, maybe in 1988 when I was reading the Epic of Gilgamesh. I find them amazing, these big eyes probably staring at very far away stars, deeply concentrated and at the same time lost. Their tiny hands holding I don’t know what. I think they are a man and a woman. In the book where I found this picture, they say they are two gods, but for me they are very human and seriously curious about the unknown. I think I feel like them when I forget about where I live.
I like books, I like making books. Before the invention of print, books were hand made. Also, after Gutenberg some precious books were still made and illustrated by hand. There are some beautiful medieval books which are very much in my heart, but here I have chosen two pages from a Persian book. There are no images, only framed calligraphy. I do not understand the meaning of what is written but these abstract pages remind me how the art of inscribing messages on a page is important and in fact can be enough.
This is a photo in an old children’s sci-fi book. I like the big computer with all the buttons, the nylon pink hair of the girl operating the machine, which is so different from what we use now. But still, that is the future. The future inspires me. In my work there is always the future, not the past, the future made of all the past digested but we don’t know for what purpose.
These types of paintings are named Chaekgeori and Chaekgado, I think they had a kind of influence on me. I saw the first ones before I became a painter in 1986, in bad black and white photocopies and I was immediately interested by these compositions made only of objects. Chaekgadoare paintings representing pieces of furniture, like big shelves in which heteroclite objects are installed. At the time, in 1986 I was still working as a designer and I liked the way the elements were represented in axonometry. I liked the exotic aspect of the precious objects displayed with piles of books, all very regular. In the Chaekgeori paintings the objects and furniture are combined on one stand, they are like a pile of objects making one big object. I think at this point in my life they inspire me, or at least I remember them when I build my “constructions”, putting together elements from different periods of my work and new paintings.
This book was given to me for Christmas this winter by a good friend. It is a book of Mediterranean recipes and it is organised by ingredients. I cook mostly vegetarian. It is enough to open the book and find an unusual way of preparing things I am used to cooking in more or less the same way every time. It is a very thick book, and recipes are illustrated with small photos where food is displayed on nice plates. It also tells you how long to spend on the preparation – many do not require much time which is also very inspiring!