Ten Questions: Italian Artist and Designer Benedetta Borrometi

Home acrylic on canvas and collage with glitter 2012. One of Benedetta Borrometi's paintings for her new exhibition in Rome: "The painting shows how Tokyo is my inspiration - a magical place, where you can see the newest technology next to tradition. The contrasts and sense of elegance, the smells and sounds - everything there makes me drunk with ideas and dreams." 

Artist and designer Benedetta Borrometi tells Jeanne-Marie Cilento what drives her creative work and her new exhibition. Borrometi has a law degree but moved to London to study fine art at Central Saint Martins College of Art. Her career has encompassed working as a designer at Italian television network Mediaset to collaborating with textile designer Tsumori Chisato in Tokyo and illustrating the French magazine Plume Voyage. Today, she lives between Italy and Japan and is married to Japanese photographer Horikiri Kentaro.

1. What are you currently working on?

At the moment I am very focused on my next collaboration with a ceramic brand from Puglia called Ceramiche Enza Fasano. For a long time I dreamt of doing a project like this and giving people the chance to buy my work easily. We are making a collection of different designs and prints for various pieces of pottery. I am also working on another project in Azerbaijan for a music and art fair there.

2. What inpires you for your creative work now?

Travelling gives me a great deal of inspiration - I have so many sketches I did when I was in Japan. I also take inspiration from my dreams: I see my painting in front of me like a vision - so I run and draw it before I forget the image!

3. How did you choose painting as your creative metier?

Painting is a way for me to talk without words. It is something that I cannot control. I can't live without painting now. My goal is to leave a part of me in my work and for the paintings to create a special atmosphere and give positive vibrations and feelings. I am always very happy when I visit a collector's house and see my paintings with their new owner. I feel like a part of me is still there in the canvas.

4. Can you describe the experience, person or training that has had the greatest impact on your painting and design career?

I truly believe in destiny. In my life I've met so many people that helped me and that gave me something to keep close to my heart. I admire many artists and designers and I've been lucky to be a friends with some of them. Collaborating with Tsumori Chisato, I learnt to draw a dream and translate it into fashion.

Aya Takano was one of my favourite artists in Japan and I had the chance to meet her and now we are very close friends. I think she is a very special person, someone that seems to come from another planet, an amazing artist full of creativity and power. From her I learnt that nothing is really impossible and that dreams can come true - those are the titles of two of my early works. I really believe that life can offer opportunity if you are ready to catch it. I think it is true that creativity is a kind of gift. If you have a gift you can improve it and that is the magical meaning of being an artist for me.

5. What do you find the most challenging aspect of your work technically?

My technique is a mix of using different materials such as impasto, collages of various fabrics and different glitters. But I can say that a very strong aspect of my art is colour balance. I work on colours to make them dance together. Embroidery drives me crazy but I find it so special. I like researching materials from all over the world. I also use vintage kimonos and glitter that I find in Vietnam and the UK or in a tiny shop in Shibuya in Japan.

6.  Where do you like to draw or create your initial paintings?  

I often see my paintings as a dream, like a vision so I keep a sketch book with me to write the ideas down quickly. Then I start to work on the idea when I wake up in the morning at home.

7. Do you have a set schedule of working creatively everyday or is the process more fluid?

I really love to work without any pressure. For me a fluid process is the best. But it is also true that I must prepare a schedule when I am close to a solo show or I have to give work to a client in a short time. Now work for me is getting more and more planned as I have many things to do and I must be strict with myself.

8. What part of painting gives you the most happiness and do you find your creative process is more rational or instinctive?

I love to finish a drawing and start to find the right colours. I like to study the light and feel the paint alive day after day. Sometimes I cannot go to sleep and leave the canvas alone and not finished!

It's feels natural for me to recreate my ideas in paint. I can say that my process is really instinctive at the beginning and then it gets more rational when I check the materials and make time to finish the work properly.

9. Is there a town or place in the world you consider inspiring?  

I've travelled so much in my life but I can say that there is no other place like Japan for me. The inspiration is Tokyo one hundred percent. A magical place, where you can see the newest technology next to tradition. The contrasts and sense of elegance, the smells and sounds - everything there makes me drunk with ideas and dreams.

I did many of my drawings there. I'm still inspired by my house in Tokyo, my everyday life in the city and the colours - I still feel all of it in my heart everyday even though I am in Italy.

10. In our digital age what does painting give us as an art form and how do you define contemporary art?

I love technology and I think that we are part of a new world full of input from the Internet and all the applications of our phones, social networks and blogs - it is like being in a bubble. But paint is still something that comes from a brush, something that smells and is alive in a way.

I think we can still feel the personality of Picasso just looking at his painting. I can feel the instinctive brushwork of Basquiat and the sadness of Frida Khalo in a way that no digital form can give us. I don't want to define contemporary art, I just want to see a painting and go back home and still feel it inside like a colpo di fulmine.

Artist and designer Benedetta Borrometi working in her studio in Tokyo. "I'm still inspired by my house there, my everyday life in the city and the colours - I still feel all of it in my heart everyday even though I am in Italy."

Fuyu is the Albero acrylic on canvas with embroidered vintage kimonos164x124cm 2012. "My technique is a mix of using different materials such as impasto, collages of various fabrics and different glitters. A very strong aspect of my art is colour balance. I work on colours to make them dance together. Embroidery drives me crazy but I find it so special. I also use vintage kimonos and glitter that I find in Vietnam and the UK or in a tiny shop in Shibuya in Japan."

You are Everything and Everything is Yours, mixed materials, acrylic with collage and embroidery 200x155cm 2013. "This represents me in nature in a deep fog with the owl helping me find my path so I can see in the dark and discover a way out of my problems. I love new technology but paint is still something that comes from a brush, something that smells and is alive in a way." 

We Are Not Afraid of the End of the World acrylic and canvas collage with glitter 200x145cm 2013. "This painting is dedicated to the people of Japan after surviving the tsunami as they are always so strong. The animals such as the fox, the wolf, the salamander and the lucky maneko cat that surround me all symbolise protection."

Let Tell You My Secret acrylic on canvas 80x65cm 2010.The bear is a symbol of nature for me and it represents the hope that man will not destroy our environment, the hope that nature will survive humans." 

Bene To Kuma acrylic on wood with collage of washi paper 110x68cm 2013. "My symbol is the bear that lives in the mountains in Northern Japan, where stars at night can be almost touched. Bears are strong and courageous but also timid and their yearly hibernation represents the victory of life over death. I wish to dedicate my exhibition Hope to the survivors of the tsunami tragedy in Japan.The canvases show the hot line of unity of love and respect for the planet's eco-system so very close to nature and animals, with meanings and symbols."

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Photo Essay: Last Days of Winter and the Dawn of Spring in Tuscany

Little Jerusalem ~ the ancient town centre of Pitigliano that appears to grow out of the tufa cliffs in central Tuscany

Photographer Andreas Romagnoli travels across the Val d’Orcia shooting the narrow streets, stone houses and great cathedrals that make up the self-contained towns set high above the plains in central Tuscany. After lunch on a cold winter’s afternoon, the medieval villages clustered on hilltops seem deserted and desolate until the early evening passeggiata, writes Jeanne-Marie Cilento

THE thick-walled, stone palazzi look blind with their wooden shutters closed and metal doors pulled down on shop windows. Looking out from a scenic rampart, rolling green and brown hills undulate below with no hint of movement. The wind whistles up from the valleys and blows unfettered through empty vicoli and up steep, dimly-lit stairs.   

But after 4pm the towns begin to stir. Shop shutters are pulled up and signs of life begin to appear. A slant of sun draws people out of doors for a post-lunch passeggiata to the piazza for an espresso or gelato. Streets begin to fill up as family groups merge with pre-dinner gatherings of teenagers linking arms and taking an early evening stroll. Locals buy a few last necessities before the stores close until Monday. The tranquil towns are immersed in the quiet and dark of the countryside with only lamplight to add a spark to Saturday night.

An atmospheric village rising theatrically from the plains is the old town of Pitigliano ~ known as Little Jerusalem. Honey-coloured buildings with blank windows appear to grow out of the sheer tufa rock with ravines cascading below. Historically a frontier town between the Grand Duchy of Tuscany and the Papal States,  Pitigliano was home to a flourishing Jewish community after people fled from Rome during the persecutions of the Counter Reformation. 

One of the caves in the tufa below the town was used for the Passover matzoh bakery called the forno delle azzime. During the Second World War, all of the town’s Jews escaped capture by the Germans with help from their Christian Pitigliano neigbours. Today, there are few Jewish families left but the synagogue built in1598 is still used and was restored in 1995.

One of the most spectacular churches in the Tuscan central region is the medieval duomo of Siena with it’s dramatic dark-green and white striped marble campanile and lacy red marble and mosaic façade. Originally designed and completed between 1215 and 1263, it is in the form of a Latin cross with a dome and lantern by Bernini. 

The façade of the Siena duomo is one of the loveliest in Italy. The west front is the main entry to the cathedral and has three portals, the central one capped by a bronze sun. Built in two stages and combining elements of French Gothic, Tuscan Romanesque and Classical architecture, the façade is a beautiful example of Sienese workmanship. Using polychrome marble, the first work was overseen by Giovanni Pisano with the doors and columns between the portals richly decorated with acanthus scrolls, allegorical figures and biblical scenes.

Across the rich green fields of the Val d'Orcia is Pienza, a town still in the province of Siena, between Montepulciano and Montalcino.  An influential example of Renaissance urbanism, the town was declared a World Heritage Site in 1996. By 2004 the entire valley of the Val d'Orcia was included on the list of UNESCO's World Cultural Landscapes.

Pienza was originally rebuilt from a village called Corsignano, the birthplace of Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini in 1405, a Renaissance humanist born into an exiled Sienese family, who later became Pope Pius II. Once he became Pope, Piccolomini had the entire village rebuilt as an ideal Renaissance town. Intended as a retreat from Rome, Pienza represents the first application of humanist urban planning that spread to other Italian towns and then to cities across Europe.

Click on photographs for full-screen slideshow

The old centre of Pitigliano showing the medieval palazzi still standing but empty above the cliffs of tufa

 The bell-tower of Pitigliano's duomo rises above the old town perched on the cliff

Below the walls of rock that the town is built on are green fields stretching across the Val d'Orcia

A little red Ape truck trundles across a great, arcaded bridge of a valley in the Val d'Orcia

Budding signs of spring are blooming on a wintry hillside in central Tuscany

A cascading river flows down the ravine in Pitigliano

 Bare winter trees wait for spring along the river bank outside Pitigliano

Mossy terracotta tiles roof the old houses in Pitigliano

Cezanne's roofscapes in Tuscany

A steep medieval stairway of worn stones in the old town of Pitigliano

The rough tufa stone palazzi and quiet alley-ways of Pitigliano that was once a haven for Rome's Jewish population

An urban palcoscenico provides a stage to look out on the countryside below Pitigliano

 A local man texts in the streets of  Pitigliano that have not changed since the 15th Century 

A fountain in Pitigliano reflects the wintry light of  a solitary Saturday afternoon in the Val d'Orcia

The gentle undulations of the green hills of the Val d'Orcia

The lovely west facade of the Siena cathedral with it's polychrome marble carving and glinting mosaic decoration

 Looking behind the west front of the duomo in Siena

The soaring green and white striped marble campanile of the Siena cathedral

One of the early Renaissance buildings ringing the beautiful central piazza in Siena

The Siena Cathedral in all of it's polychrome marble glory

Green hills and blue skies show spring is on its way in Tuscany

The road to Pienza

 Russet-coloured trees surround the houses scattered on the hillside outside Pienza

The swelling curves of Tuscany's fertile plains

 Late afternoon sun outside Pienza

Looking towards the hilltop town of Pienza

The rectilinear Renaissance palazzi lining the streets of the centre of Pienza ~ an urban plan that was copied across Europe

The beautifully-laid herringbone bricks paving a street in Pienza

A winter afternoon in Pienza 

The Tuscan coastal town of Porto Santo Stefano

Fishing along the Tuscan coast 

 Porto Santo Stefano and Porto Ercole are resort towns on the slopes of Monte Argentario

The cafes around the placid waters of Porto Santo Stefano are a haven for an early evening aperitif in winter and summer

David Bowie Is: New Exhibition Opens At The V&A in London

Striped body suit designed by Kansai Yamamoto for  David Bowie's 1973 Aladdin Sane tour. Photograph by Masayoshi Sukita

The spectacular new exhibition of David Bowie's life and work has opened at the Victorian and Albert Museum in London, reports Jeanne-Marie Cilento

ALREADY the most popular show in the V&A’s history, the exhibition’s pre-sale tickets reached 50,000 prior to the official opening on Saturday. A party was held at the museum earlier in the week and actor Tilda Swinton gave the opening speech, representing the absent Bowie. Swinton has just appeared with him in the new video for his single The Stars Are Out Tonight. 

The V&A’s curators were given complete access to the David Bowie Archive to create this first international retrospective of the singer's creative ouvre. The multi-media exhibition shows how Bowie developed into a pioneering and influential performer. It explores the creative processes behind his musical innovation and his role as a cultural icon as well as his style and capacity for reinvention across five decades.

Curators Victoria Broackes and Geoffrey Marsh selected more than 300 objects from the Bowie archive for the show. Bowie’s art work and musical instruments are exhibited along with his handwritten lyrics and original costumes plus the photography, film, music videos and set designs showing his concerts, films and fashion. 

Bowie collaborated with many artists and designers in film, art, theatre, fashion and music. Some of the pieces on display include Ziggy Stardust bodysuits from 1972 designed by Freddie Burretti, Kansai Yamamoto's Aladdin Sane tour outfits, a Union Jack coat co-designed by Alexander McQueen, photographs by Brian Duffy, album sleeve artwork by Guy Peellaert and Edward Bell and Bowie’s cover of 1997's Earthling album.

Excerpts from Bowie’s films and live performances such as The Man Who Fell to Earth, music videos like Boys Keep Swinging and set designs created for the Diamond Dogs tour  in 1974 are all on display. The evolution of his creative ideas are shown with storyboards, handwritten set lists and lyrics as well as some of Bowie’s own sketches, musical scores and diary entries.

Along with the extraordinary interest in the London exhibition, David Bowie’s recently released new album 'The Next Day' went to the top of the UK album chart and became Bowie's first number one in Britain since 1993's 'Black Tie White Noise'. 

 

Album cover shoot for Aladdin Sane 1973. Photograph by Brian Duffy

Photo collage of film stills from The Man Who Fell to Earth by Studio Canal 

The Thin White Duke performing on stage his Station to Station album 1976

David Bowie photographed in Munich in the 1970s wearing a tweed suit with flared trousers and carrying a leather jacket

Bowie in Nicolas Roeg's 1976 film Man Who Fell to Earth 

One of the exhibits at the V&A show in London 

After his glam period, Bowie created the chic, minimalist look of the Thin White Duke 

 One of the large multi-media exhibits in the show with films and videos of Bowie's  performances

David Bowie and his wife Iman photographed for a Tommy Hilfiger fashion campaign

David Bowie collaborated with Alexander McQueen on the Union Jack coat for the cover of the 1997 album Earthling 

Part of the new exhibition showing Bowie with The Kon-rads band in the 1960s.

www.vam.ac.uk