BORN A PAINTER

I wonder if being represented by Galleria Continua influenced her to think about the commercial potential of her art, or if working with the gallery changed the direction of her artistic style. She tells me that it didn’t change her approach towards her work. Spagnoli says, “One of the things that changed was how I make use of my time, I became more organised. I also started thinking about how to better organise the work. Although it’s indispensable, I don’t think a lot about the commercial side. Yet, I feel that I have always kept my interests and my way of working close to my heart. What the gallery gave me is a sense of protection, I feel completely protected. At the same time, it took me out of the academic setting where it perhaps felt more intimate. My connection with the gallery obviously had an impact and offered me wider visibility. It boosted my trust in myself and also gave me confidence in my work.”

Before meeting Marta Spagnoli, I skimmed through her first and only catalogue, “Whiteout” which brought together a selection of her earlier series – accompanied by texts written by Giovanni Giacomo Paolin and Serse – in order to gain further insight into her artistic practice. Combined with my observations of her recent paintings on display in Fantasmata, I could clearly see the wind of change that had breezed through her. Though, I can still sense the apprehensiveness of those early paintings within her. I ask her, “Do you trust yourself more now?” She tells me, “Perhaps not from the very beginning, but it surely made me become clearer, more incisive, and more organised. I ask her what a normal day in Marta Spagnoli’s life entails. She explains, “I wake up and I start working at the studio at around 10 am and I finish around 7-8 pm. I work in a very disciplined manner. This is crucial for organising my time.” Does she work every day of the week? To my surprise, she says, “More or less every day, sometimes I take a day off.” I wonder, what does a young painter living at the end of the first quarter of the 21st century do with her free time? She responds humbly, yet without flinching, “I usually stay at home. I clean; I cook.”

I had noticed that the first page of her exhibited sketchbook had a list of books and author’s name jotted down. So I ask her, “What do you read?” “Literature is central to my work. I used to start from some concept I read in a book, and I would try to think about it and draw about what I read. This is an important aspect of my work.” Spagnoli is a painter who turns ideas, and above all, sensations, into images. “I go to illustrate what I read; I try to visualise a particular feeling from it.”

Akin to the feeling of spiritual transference that seeped into my being from her paintings and poured out into my surroundings as I stood gazing around me. In that moment, a curator colleague came to me and asked me what I think about Marta Spagnoli’s work. I told him that I enjoyed the sketches and the sketchbook immensely and that the canvases seem to be projections of the artist’s inner world more than anything that has been written about her work. He in return told me, that Marta Spagnoli’s work is about the evolution of the animal into human and why we are the way we are. I looked at him with doubt and told him that both figurative and abstract elements are present but beyond that there’s a depth that remains unexplained by what is written about them. To me, the canvases were an expression of Marta Spagnoli’s psychological and sentimental being rather than an intellectual intervention inspired from a particular book or work of art. A spiritual outburst that finds itself expressed on a canvas. Of course, the curator disagreed. So I asked him, “How do you know? Are you Marta Spagnoli?” I can report that there was a moment of silence followed by disregard by both sides.

I must add that I feel that most – if not all- of the texts written about contemporary art, in particular, the press releases given out like candy at every turn, are fabricated around the artwork for the observers to make some sense of it. In reality, none of these theoretical and hypothetical descriptions really matter. Art goes beyond that. When anyone (and I mean anyone, not just those who have been formally trained in the field) looks at a work of art, they interpret it through themselves more than through any written text. They bring into it their personal life experience and their subjectivity.  So the art at hand is no longer strictly and solely about the artist’s world but more about the observer’s world. Art becomes part of our collective humanity. I want to shout at the top of my lungs, "Leave the text on the sideboard, look at the art, let yourself be immersed in it and don’t try to define it, because you’ll ruin it!" I know, this is a strange stance for someone who writes about art. I ask Marta, “Do you like to talk about your art?”

She nods and a big smile lights up her face. She speaks quietly, “Not so much” and begins self-analysing: “It’s true that my work is conditioned by a lot of my own emotivity. I often say I’m interested in understanding feelings and my relationship with the universe. There’s also an attempt to bring forth and research the relationships, sensations which I perhaps find in books. I believe my work responds on a visual level. The texts written about the work may give a sense of meaning to people who require an introduction to my paintings. But, I am very happy that you noticed the emotive side. The personal emotional aspect is a great component of my work.”

Her fingers continue to fidget on the sleek surface of the table. I ask her, “Are you an anxious person?” She chuckles nervously and concurs. I want to dive into her psyche, I want to know more about this person. I believe that if you truly want to understand art, and you have the opportunity to meet the artist, you have to undress the conscious layers to get to the subconscious. You have to strip the canvas back to its woven blankness and really see the person who is sharing that sliver of time with you. I cast a follow-up question; “What makes you anxious?” Spagnoli laughs again, “Good question! I am very interested psychology. I used to study psychology and work on myself in this aspect. I think it’s visible that there’s a need for control. The images and the drawings are at times very specific, but I’m used to working with a chaotic mass of paint, I erase the drawings, I create a contrast between control and my need for a lack of control. When the unexpected appears, it can provide a way to manage my own anxiety, or my necessity to control the image. I don’t know if I want to destroy what I made or if I want to embrace it. I think you can see this contrast and also a balance between the elements to produce a work of art that is balanced. Perhaps this is why I choose a chromatic palette, and what often follows is my need to destroy it, to have a gesture to erase… There are a lot of layers in my paintings – I erase what I created with oil paint and then automatically, I redraw on it.”

I explain that in our ultra-fast-paced world, longevity is a subject seldom discussed, especially for an artist on the cusp of her thirties. There’s an inflation of young artists on the international art market and I feel that it’s really hard for artists working today to capture the art-lover’s attention. Collectors buying your art contributes to your longevity as an artist but there’s also need for truthful artistic discourse which in time may bring sustenance, and through that, longevity. Although that level of equilibrium doesn’t exist in the contemporary art market. What is more important to you? Longevity, or to make the art now whatever the consequence?

Spagnoli opts for longevity. I want her to elaborate so I offer a potential scenario: “Assume you got to a dead-end and you say, ‘I don’t know what the next thing is, I don’t know what I should do, I’m going to take a five-year break’, would you actually take a break, or would you plod on to produce anything that happened to come into being in the process?” She tells me that last year she decided to work without a project in mind. “I was working just to keep on working without scheduling a prospective exhibition. I’m used to alternating like that. When I need time I try to take it. But of course, there are some invitations and occasions I have to attend. I try to have some balance, but I don’t want to cloud my work. I want to protect my work; I have to feel the need to work profoundly. I don’t produce a huge number of works; if I don’t feel it within me, I don’t paint. This attitude must remain in the foreground because I need every work of art that I make to be sincere. I think that this is one of the ingredients that enable longevity for the work.”

Participating in prominent art fairs and biennials is another way of creating suspense around the work, which can have an influence on an artist’s durability. She lives in Venice, so the first renowned art event that pops into my head is the Venice Biennial. I ask her if she thinks she might participate in the next edition. With a blended touch of hope and dismay, she says she doesn’t think so, but who knows?!