Emilio Valerio D’ Ospina is a Taranto born artist; currently based out of Indiana, Pennsylvania, USA. Born on September 9, 1980, Emilio received an artistic diploma from Liceo Artistico Statale “Lisippo” in Taranto on July 14, 1999, where he was first introduced to the world of art.Since July 2009 Valerio is established in the USA where he lives and works. His paintings are alive and very energetic. The most intriguing part of his paintings is the moving effect he gives to his paintings.
Besides being an excellent artist, Emilio is a thought-provoking individual too and I got to know this only after interviewing him.
Catch his interview below and learn about his inspiring artistic journey:
Catch his interview below and learn about his inspiring artistic journey:
Valerio, please introduce yourself to E-junkies. Tell us a bit about your background.
I was born in Taranto, southern Italy, a city located by the Mediterranean sea. Its strategic location has always been exploited by its cargo ports and naval arsenals. The city is also home of one of the most important steel industries in Europe (ILVA) which lately is always becoming a more significant environmental problem mainly due to dioxin dispersion.
This is the background scenario for my early eighteen years and, as you can notice from my work, I carry many memories of those places into my art.
After graduating high school, I moved to Florence to further my artistic studies in the Accademia di Belle Arti, not the Florence Academy of Fine Art, which is an international private school but the academy which houses Michelangelo’s David.
After graduating with a degree in painting and receiving a MFA to teach painting and drawing, I was invited to teach a summer course at the IUP (Indiana University of Pennsylvania), in the city where I temporarily still live and work.
My influences can come from everything, everywhere and “every-when” if this is a word!Obviously most of my inspiration comes from my “love” of the work of some great masters both past and present. I always need to see art, to see beauty and also ugliness that sometimes can be perceived as beauty.
I need to travel frequently and to attend relevant artistic venues such as biennales, art fairs, art museums and anything that involve art! It’s very important for me to refresh my mind and not to close myself within the four walls of my studio or the minimal square miles of a small town.
Usually the art I follow with particular interest is abstract-realist painting, which in some way comes from great artists such as Alberto Giacometti, Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon, to name a few. Sometimes I take a particular interest in some great photographers like Diane Arbus and Nan Goldin, but also a lots of unknown “flickr” photography amateurs who just likes wide angle lenses, HDR photography and abandoned spaces.
Something that has also influenced me are graphics for videogames made by great concept artists such as Craig Mullins, specifically his post-nuclear scenarios of the Fallout series.
Since I was in kinder garden my teachers were surprised by my artistic skills and so I ended up attending an artistic high school called Liceo Artistico Lisippo in Taranto. It was a five year program and my specific course was an “experimental” one, which differed from “classic” programs by concentrating more on theory than on practice. We had more material such as philosophy, English, math, art history etc. In a few words, we drew less and studied more. I used to envy students in the classic course because they painted and sculptured their first year…I had to wait until the last year to touch a paint brush! The only drawing classes I had were architecture design and visual perception design. If I think about it now, I’m not repented at all, because I’m sure those studies gave me a more solid foundation to build the artist I am now. During the early four years I displayed exemplary talent in architectural design and wanted to be an architect, but the last year my projects for the future completely changed when I visited Florence on a school trip and when I painted for the first time. I made a very large reproduction of the Gericault’s Raft of the Medusa, against the advice of my professors not to take on such a complicated work for my first painting, but I was confident that I could finish it with no problem at all… I mean… I used olive oil instead of linseed oil, but that was because I had no previous training in the correct preparation, tools and materials for oil painting. The end result is now part of the “pride” of the school and the painting took a place in the history of that art institute, which is now organizing an exhibition in the National Museum of Taranto for the next year, inviting myself and a few other ex-alumni who have a relevant career in the contemporary art scene.
I believe my last year of high school was the beginning of my realization that my career would be as an artist, but if we want to talk about my artistic career in a more strict sense, when I first started selling my art and being represented by art galleries, I would have to fast forward to right after my studies in Florence, when I moved to teach at IUP (Indiana University of Pennsylvania).
During this teaching experience I realized that there were too many professors teaching studio art classes but none of which were actually artists (as I intend the true meaning of the word artist). I realized that I went from being a painter who occasionally taught, to a teacher who also painted and near the end, a professor who used to paint.
So I broke up with a still young teaching career and started to focus full time on my artistic creations. After less than two years of very intense work, I became what I am now.
So I broke up with a still young teaching career and started to focus full time on my artistic creations. After less than two years of very intense work, I became what I am now.
Your paintings are extraordinary and appear so realistic. What tools do you use to create them? Would you like to describe your creative work process?
Thank you for the “extraordinary”…I feel also some sensation of safety when people still say that my work is very realistic, it’s the confirmation that I still have a lot of work to do (laugh). Since I consider myself an abstract-realist painter, my current need is to become a little more “abstract” than realistic. I hate to use these restrictive words but I think it’s necessary to explain myself with my still broken English. When I was a student in the Academy I was a very realistic painter, I was classical, almost photorealistic, then I fell in love with the artists I mentioned previously and tried to escape from the “comfortable” executing technique. It’s been much more difficult to continue to paint strong images by using more gestural expression, and sometimes casualness in my work rather than having patience with tiny brushes and making the work as realistic as possible.
I always look to eliminate the “comfort” both in technique and tools I use. Even my compositions are frequently uncomfortable to look at…especially considering the common feeling of vertigo when looking at some of my cityscapes.
I like to use the “wrong” tools, the “wrong” brushes, the wrong surface to paint on, something that a painting professor would never recommend a student to use, like a very large brush to paint tiny light strokes. In this way I get more of the casualness and gestural expression I touched on before. The result is something cool, intriguingly unconventional but still “tasty”. If you consider Jackson Pollock… the power of his work is in the dripping technique, which he discovered by accident, a fortuity! His work before that “revelation” was less than mediocre!
Well… my goal is to recreate the power of his paintings, the freshness, the same energy, the same expression and beauty, but representing tangible reality. For this reason I work straight with the paint, with no preliminary drawing, usually by “throwing” the paint with long bristle brushes first, to determine the perspective and the outlines.
Yeah it’s difficult…I don’t have a specific painting that is closest to my core inspiration…I feel like a father who’s been asked which one of his children he loves the most…you know?
But I can tell that I can prefer to paint certain themes rather than other…
But I can tell that I can prefer to paint certain themes rather than other…
One of the subject matters that I feel particular devotion to is the human figure.
Painting figures has always been a noble thing since the great masters of the past…if you consider the renaissance frescos, the masters used to have assistants who painted the background and the architectural parts of the whole composition. It was the master and only him who took specific care of the figures. Painting a figure is more than just paint, it’s something mystical that has a more psychological relationship with the artist in himself as a human being.
But I have a strange, weird relationship with this subject matter, I feel that I need to be more experimental with it. Whenever I was that “traditional” painter that I mentioned before, I used to exclusively represent portraits and figures. I’ve drawn and studied the human anatomy assiduously at the well know “La Specola” Museum in Florence, and sometimes also from real body sections at the Museum of the Careggi Hospital.I was surrounded by some of the most important masterpieces in the world made by great masters who taught us how to “love” the human body. Should I quote some names? No, I think we all know who I’m talking about!
So far so good, until my artistic expression grew and I felt the need to abandon those “artistic fathers” and keep paving my own way. I tried, and I’m trying always, to become more “fluid” to gain some “freedom” from everything that is considered academic. For this reason I stopped painting figures for a while and started focusing on subjects which gave me the freedom I needed in the execution process. It’s not very hard to notice that my most mature subjects are my industrial scenes, my ship yards or cityscapes. I tried recently to go back to the figure …but I’m not quite there yet, I don’t feel the same freedom I have for the other themes, I feel stuck in the “academic smell”. I just need to get the right “key”, the code that will help me to finally crack, “cheat” and dissolve the formal stratification in my mind contemned by the academic training. In a few words: I need to learn how to unlearn.
One painting tool you can't do without?
If I wanted to be cool I would answer -my hands!- but that’s too pathetic and obvious…Instead I can surely say that while I paint I use rags as Americans use butter every meal! Rags are absolutely necessary for me! Tons of rags! I use them to take off the paint from my canvases…sometimes taking off, instead of putting on, can have more satisfying results and keeps the freshness of the whole painting.
Music you listen to while painting?
Music, especially rock’ n’ roll, makes me want to out down the brushes and pick up my electric guitar (laugh).
But if I listen to music while I work, it’s usually something that I could never be able to play with my guitar, like classical music in general or Ennio Morricone, Sigur Ros etc.
Having some sort of distraction during the work, can determine the result of my paintings. Using a very quick touch, I need not to focus too much on what and how I’m painting something, my hand should operate before my brain processes and decides how a stroke should be done. In this way I can avoid the academic formal attitude in my executing processes.
For this reason, while I work, I like to talk on skype with friends or relatives or to have somebody, not annoying, in my studio. It happened that I paid a living model to pose for me even if I was painting something else… That kept me pretty much distracted! (laugh)
Tea or coffee?
Absolutely coffee, espresso, I’m really addicted to it, as every veracious Italian. I get a headache if I don’t consume at least a shot of it in the morning!
One artist you admire the most?
(laugh) In this case I feel like a kid who’s been asked –who do you love the most mom or daddy?- …well, I would say…Alberto Giacometti !?
Who/what is your greatest strength?
Absolutely all the “art world” included it’s geniuses.
Share one best compliment you've ever received for your work.
Usually I tend to forget verbal compliments that people give me. Nevertheless, I think the best compliments I receive are not made with words but with facts…for me it’s a compliment just seeing people enjoying and getting inspired by my work. One time I curiously tried to Google my name and I realized that there are so many people all over the world who have posted my work on their blogs, websites etc., referring to me as an inspirational painter. Also having a student save money for a year to buy one of my larger and pretty expensive pieces was quite a great satisfaction and compliment for me.
Is there any dream project of yours?
I’m sorry... I never talk in advance about my future projects and especially not about my dreams. I prefer to do things first and then talk about them once they have become reality.
What message do you have for budding artists?
Become a good “gourmet” before to become a good “chef”! or… learn how to “taste” before to learn how to “cook”… just choose the one that makes more sense in English!
And a final word for our readers?
Since they are reading the last question, it probably means that they have read the whole interview…so I would like to thank them all for their patience and attention.
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Dear Emilio, you should be reported for plagiarism!!!
Anybody can make a search on Google for Alessandro Papetti and see not only the same style but also the same painting!!!
Just a bad COPYCAT of a great Italian painter!
Shame on you!!!!
check this out:
http://www.google.com/imgres?q=alessandro+papetti&um=1&hl=en&sa=N&rlz=1T4RNWE_enUS328US361&biw=1024&bih=536&tbm=isch&tbnid=wIZf1y6JdwDH2M:&imgrefurl=http://artpais.canalblog.com/archives/papetti_alessandro/index.html&docid=GQKfh1-naUWxZM&imgurl=http://storage.canalblog.com/20/83/192635/22080535.jpg&w=800&h=586&ei=obznTtb_MMrd0QH7tc2eCg&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=316&vpy=203&dur=94&hovh=192&hovw=262&tx=149&ty=129&sig=102009111919352776214&page=11&tbnh=139&tbnw=198&start=98&ndsp=9&ved=1t:429,r:6,s:98
and more:
http://www.google.com/search?rlz=1T4RNWE_enUS328US361&q=alessandro+papetti&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hl=en&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=m7znTsS0Aqb30gGA8KSaCg&biw=1024&bih=536&sei=obznTtj8JoTw0gGPnen4CQ
Thank you for bringing this to our notice. We have contacted the artist and are waiting to hear back from him. You will see an update very soon.
Statement issued by artist Emilio Valerio D' Ospina:
"These false allegations are being handled by my attorney who will address this explicit form of defamation directly.
I am far to busy to waste time addressing these ridiculous claims, however, I will say that the history of art is filled with endless examples of artists representing the same subject matter in a similar way. Alessandro Papetti is no doubt a great master and it is a compliment to be compared to him, but I can say with 100 percent confidence and sincerity that I have never plagiarized the work of him or any other artist. The images I depict are all from my personal archive. The comment that I have made the "same painting" (to quote above) in style and subject as another artist is simply not true and quite frankly, laughable. The work being compared in the links provided above are images of completely different structures, and those with an artistically trained eye can also see vast differences in technical approach."
Thank you for the clarification. We have also updated the article with Emilio's statement on this allegation.