"Irregulars" Painting

Born in Italy. Graduated from the school of photography and visual arts (ISFAV), Padova, Italy. After some work experience abroad, I specialized in interior design photography collaborating since 2002 with the Agency Franca Speranza/Olycom and later with BlobCG Agency in Milan. In 2005 I worked in Paris as assistent with photographer Daniele & Iango, Jean Baptiste Mondino and Tommaso Sartori . In 2007 I moved to Spain where actually I’m living and working. In 2016 I started paintings, self-taught. My artistic activity is inextricably linked to my photographic career. I borrow the immediate character of the cut from the latter ‒ as the result of an analog practice that involves the conception of a definitive shot ‒ as well as the narrative intent, designed to outline the fundamental human presence. After all, art and photography have always followed a parallel path in my life, beginning from the years of studies, during which I started to draw with pencils. Painting remained a latent desire until my move to Spain where I was finally able to begin working in a studio. Again, it’s the photos, taken by me or more commonly found around, that offer the starting point for my paintings. I am struck by the private expressions and poses of ordinary people, which I love to tell with quick strokes of color: both on large-format canvases and smaller ones, that when observed next to each other resemble an Instagram account. These more intimate works are juxtaposed with the Spanish suggestions of a series on bullfighting, a foreign world for me, which I know exclusively through the collective imagination and Picasso's lesson and the constant in-progress work on my artist books, real visual diaries composed of impressions of imaginary and non-imaginary journeys, in which I combine paintings and images. Furthermore, the influence of the British painter Lynette Yiadom-Boakye brought me closer to black culture, which I try to understand and honor through my portraits. My other references that made me fall in love with painting are Michael Borremans, Lucian Freud, Marlene Dumas, Noha Davis and Santiago Idañez. For me, art and photography are complementary and inseparable: with painting I capture what I cannot achieve with the lens. simonemaestra.com https://www.instagram.com/simone_maestra/