A conversation with eclectic artist Tiziana Salvati

I've know her since she's born and we have a blood connection, but I truly believe she's a very interesting and eclectic artist. I interviewed Tiziana Salvati and here it is what we conversed about.

In the past years she's been experimenting and focusing on animations in stop-motion, playing in Naples, Bari and Berlin as VJ.  Here there is a short demo:

Maria Teresa (MT): Your artwork is often dark. What's behind it?
Tiziana (T): Yes it is. And the reason is that it's rooted in the actuality. They reflect the times we live in today, and doubtlessly the human being is living a very difficult condition from many points of view.
Individulity is crashed, cities are not made for people, rather they become some kinds of shopping windows, in which many of us feel isolated and lonely.
The lost of humanity and the discomfort of living in this modern times are very dark.
Plus I live in a context that has many dark sides, Naples. Despite the sun, the mozzarella and the Vesuvio, it's a tough city.

MT: What or who inspires you? From a medium and-or content point of view?
T: I'm inspired by concepts, real life and the willingness to realise them visually, regardless of the medium, which can be photography, painting or multimedia.
I like to experiment. Most of the times I'm inspired by psycoanalysis, for example.
Good part of my work has been inspired by the concept of dualism of the human being and the I, in which two parts of the same personality are confronted.
Dualism in my work is completely gutted, for example through the long exposure photograps, in which I shoot actions and self-portraits in different positions.
The starting point is always introspective. Two figures are put in opposition, two I's that represent the components of the same person, sometimes come out, other times are dormant.
It's always the same body, but different parts of the mind communicate with one onother.
These parts can be introversion and extroversion, for example. We are used to think that we are either introverted or extroverted, so one excludes the other. On the contrary, I believe in the idea of  human beings as dynamic and subject to the time that passes by fluidly, so you can be both at different levels. Carl Jung is the psychoanalyst that I'm inspired by.

"I enjoy me" - Photo by Tiziana Salvati, Matera 2006

MT: what's the project that best reflects this concept of dualism?
T: The project that I've been working on since 2000, it's called "the cube", where I analyse content and container. The container is the body and everything in it, it's the content.
Though my work has changed a lot recently, I moved from long expsure photographs to animation in stop-motion.

MT: what has influenced the passage from these types of medium?
T: Maybe the need of evolving. I've always been interested in scanning the time. The long exposure is also about time and space; in fact, in those 6 seconds, there's something that happens and the body moves in a space that is scanned.

MT: What's your favourite medium? Why?
T: My favourite is painting. I think paint is a very intimate and therapeutic way of expressing what's inside, at least for me.

MT: Your last work it's a self-portrait paint - do you want to tell me something about it?
T: That's an excercise, a moment of therapy with myself, something very intimate.
Again, Carl Jung comes into the frame: he says that what distinguishes artists from nevrotics is the fact that artists are able to let it out, as opposed to nevrotics.
A self-portrait can be mystic process with yourself. Everybody should try it.

MT: What's your dream as an artis?
T: To make video installations in public spaces, streets and urban environments. I'm very interested in working with architects beacuse I love the concept of containers, spaces and urban developement as a way to make those spaces new, different. Cities that re-born and live in a different way, in a more human way, in which people interact with spaces and other people.

Contact: salvatiziana@tiscali.it
More work: http://www.giovaniartisti.it/salvati-tiziana?page=1