Art is a fortuitous combination of elements that come together. Interview with artist Cristiano Tassinari

Tell us what you do and your beginnings.

As often happens, things are the result of the combination of fortuitous elements. In retrospect I realize what a crucial role a certain professor played during my studies, seeing an exhibition or meeting a certain person. I often like to think about what outcome a different combination of elements would have led to.

In this period I am working on recomposing my biography by digging into the depths of the choral composition that precedes me. I prefer the use of painting, but I don’t mind sometimes resorting to sculpture or more graphic and ‘conceptual’ works.

When I had my first solo exhibition I wasn’t yet of age, then everything happened quite spontaneously.

What does your work aim to say?

I am very interested in processes, often the final result such as an exhibition or a certain work is only the epigone. Like: ‘I would like to create a sculpture that uses an iconographic imagery alien to Western culture but using local techniques and materials’, this is how Auspicious Beast was born, an apotropaic creature from Southeast Asia made of lead embossed. The material came from the roof of my family home.

I would like to create a portrait of my mother through her objects and I created the exhibition Mother’s Bliss and C di Ciliegia. I like to leave the public with maximum freedom on how to use the works, I believe that there are multiple ways of accessing art and they are all correct, even when I am convinced that the message is clear I am often proven wrong and more often than not pleasantly surprised.

Where do you find inspiration for your art?

Finding the motivations that drive you to go to the studio and do things that most of the time don’t turn into anything concrete is the most beautiful and inexplicable mystery. They are often confusing ideas that need to be substantiated by giving them shape.

Continue on MuseumWeek magazine.