ARTIST SPOTLIGHT ALESSIA ROLLO
Alessia Rollo is a visual artist born in 1982 in South Italy where she lives and works and is also our last artist interview of 2022.
After earning her undergraduate degree in visual communication at the University of Perugia (Italy), she completed a master’s in creative photography at the EFTI (Spain) in 2009. For Alessia rather than explaining or documenting a situation, photography is a medium that permits myriad metaphors. She explores the relationship between objects, human habits and society. Her projects are focused on the Mediterranean and are often oriented to expand a sense of community through re-appropriation of histories, memories and visual material. Her projects have been displayed in many international exhibitions including Photo London, Mia Photo Fair Milano, and Bitume Photofest Malaga, Shanghai Photo Festival and Galeria Cero in Madrid. Her project titled Fata Morgana was selected in the finalist group for LensCulture Exposure Award in 2018,
Tell us about your greatest inspirations or influences please Alessia.
They come from very different places, sometimes they are just epiphanies I get doing every day and ordinary things. Sometimes inspiration can come from movies to paintings and books. In my latest work, for example, I am deeply inspired by the surrealist Breton, Maya Darren movies, One hundred years of Solitude by Marquez, Ouka Leele pictures, Goya’s art, just to name a few inspirations.
How are the current trends in technology and innovation affecting your work as a creative?
With the last project I created I felt like jumping into animation and videos because I feel sometimes photography is not enough to express linguistically what I need.
We’d love to hear more about your creative process.
I usually start to work from something that disturbs me for the way it is treated visually and conceptually. After I start to see images and read about the topic I want to investigate, I brainstorm with myself using notes, scratching, and pictures that I put on my studio wall.
I am very slow in building my project (if they are not on commission of course) so it normally takes 2-3 years to finish them. When I reach a point, I can’t anymore look at those images I created for so long and I want to do something else. It's usually the time to show the project is finished.
What does wellbeing mean to you?
Living in a place close to the sea to swim at least 7 months per year, have time for my friends and family, make nice visual projects and can smell Mediterranean flavors.
You can find pictures of my artworks at my website:
