A seagull’s-eye view of the sea

I’d like to tell you the story of the painting “Portale n.45″….

Painting seascapes when you live on an island may seem natural, if not predictable. If I go back in time, to the long Milanese afternoons I spent trying to paint the sea, then it bee extent to which mine was a choice of field, even before one of location.

The sea arrived inside me first and then outside, with the decision to come and live on an island at the centre of the Tuscan Archipelago, Elba.

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Notwithstanding this awareness, every time I produce a new work I feel the responsibility to create a landscape that taps into a contemporary feeling. So I launched the ‘Dimensione Isola’ project with my friend the photographer Roberto Ridi, in which we have tackled the island from a new perspective, from above. Not an aerial view, but a bird’s-eye view. The one you imagine when you fall into a reverie watching the seagulls flying over the island.

Taking inspiration from one of his photos, I chose to re-create a landscape with familiar outlines, those of the white coasts of Padulella and Capo Bianco, at Portoferraio.

Legend has it that it was here that the Argonauts made a stop on their voyage in search of the Golden Fleece.

Exhausted, they landed and lay down on the Spiaggia delle Ghiaie, letting their sweat drain into the white pebbles of the beach. And this was how the pebbles were stained with black, blue and ochre, giving them their characteristic appearance.

In re-creating this landscape, adopting a perspective from above, the sea, my beloved sea, put aside its wavy texture to reveal expanses of transparency, in an alternation of deep greens and blues. And this combination of depth and transparency was what I wanted these two works to convey.

To achieve this I used the technique of painting in oil on panel, superimposing glazes in a way that only the medium of oil is able to do, as we have been taught by van Eyck and the Flemish painters of the 15-17 th century. The effect obtained is one of multidimensionality, as if the sea were made up of a series of transparent levels.

These works are also called Portale, followed by a number in order of their creation.

The idea behind this was that each work, through its sea, should take the viewer into ‘another’ dimension, as if it were a sensitive gateway into a different world.

I have tried to give you a personal account of the creation of this picture, with the intention of bringing you closer to the source of my creative inspiration on the island.

You can see it here:

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Reading this article I hope you got the scent of the sea, along with its colors…

See you soon…

Cristina