Lo Sguardo Italiano

New Artspire website link!

2011-01-16T11:05:00.000-08:00

Dear friends and followers of "Lo Sguardo Italiano",

a new bright and hopeful year has just began, and my film has a direct link to the Artspire website , a brand new database of artists and projects linked with the New York Foundation of the Arts. There you can read a short introduction, view the trailer and MAKE YOUR TAX DEDUCTIBLE DONATION!

Make sure you share this news with your network of friends and peers, "Lo Sguardo Italiano" needs YOUR support in any way you might like to offer (contacts, sharing, donations). Thank you for helping my dream come true!!!

Lo Sguardo Italiano trailer!

2009-12-23T16:00:00.000-08:00

Dear friends of Lo Sguardo Italiano (The Italian Gaze), this is a "sneak preview" on the trailer; hopefully your imagination can go beyond the pixels and the small size of this window...

What is this all about

2008-10-03T00:35:00.001-07:00

LO SGUARDO ITALIANO (The Italian Gaze) is a unique, independent art/film project, that uses frame by frame animation. As today, 1938 oil painted frames have been produced. The estimated total number of frames needed to complete the film are about 5,000.

LO SGUARDO ITALIANO will portray the "intoxicating" beauty of Italy, what many visitors still get looking at its landscapes and at thousands years of history, Art and Architecture, as well as denouncing the profound moral and cultural decay in contemporary Italian life. Both extremes will breathe in this authentic, original and challenging time based art work.

LO SGUARDO ITALIANO has been supported through fellowships and residency programs since its first conception, in 2005, and its beginning marked my journey as an Italian immigrant in the United States. In this website you can find highlighted the milestones of this unique adventure, through several moves, opportunities for growth, and struggle.

The Red Sea in Santa Fe

2008-10-03T00:25:00.000-07:00

At the Santa Fe Art Institute "Lo Sguardo Italiano" could finally breathe the air and the colors again. Surrounded by white walls, I had to let the red and the black taking over my frames, until there was no room for anything else.
These two months have been the last time I could work on my film. They seem so far away right now....But not that Red Sea, that water that brings sorrow, anger, and blood. An ancient truth is written on the stones. It's just waiting to be revealed, as soon as I will be able to touch it again.

The magic of Bogliasco

2008-10-02T21:34:00.000-07:00

In Nov-Dec 2007 I was hosted for the second time at the Bogliasco Foundation, in Liguria, Italy. As magic as only dreams can be, Bogliasco affected my work profoundly again.
I spent a month collecting memories and newspapers, emotions and disappointments, walking and thinking. I spent a month watching the silver line on the horizon, the endless blue of the sea, and my ideas getting a more defined shape every day....Here there is a glimpse of what it has been.

Funding this film through NYFA

2007-07-17T16:46:00.001-07:00

Since 2007 LO SGUARDO ITALIANO is a sponsored project of the New York Foundation for the Arts, a 501(c)(3), tax-exempt organization. Contribution on behalf of LO SGUARDO ITALIANO must be made payable to the New York Foundation for the Arts, and are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law.

Your contribution could make a big difference, regardeless of the amount donated. Please, use the link on the side menu of this blog or contact me for the details. THANK YOU!

Artist in Residence in Breckneridge, CO

2007-07-17T16:39:00.000-07:00

I was honored to be an Artist in Residence in the town of Breckenridge last Summer. LO SGUARDO ITALIANO lived beautifully through those mountains, clean air and kind, generous people. More frames added, more students to work with...

Creative residency at PlatteForum and first solo show in Denver!

2007-07-17T16:28:00.000-07:00

But it was in Denver that LO SGUARDO ITALIANO found its first, authentic solo show, and a generous, supportive audience. My first solo show culminated my creative residency at PlatteForum. After six weeks spent working on my project and with a talented group of teens at Platteforum, each making 1 minute, animated film about Denver, on Jul 21 the show opened its doors, and the room was literally packed with people and fans.

...at Yaddo

2007-07-17T16:24:00.000-07:00

In Mar 2006, LO SGUARDO ITALIANO was hosted at Yaddo, in Saratoga Springs, NY. A wonderful place, time, more friends and artists who inspired my journey; and a new studio, new frames, new paintings.

...and then continued

2007-07-17T16:03:00.000-07:00

In November and December 2005, LO SGUARDO ITALIANO was hosted at the MacDowell Colony, in New Hampshire for the first time. Northern, winter light, lots of trees and bright snow gave birth to the longest animated sequence since then, about 600 frames that today have been cut down to 221.

When this all started...

2007-07-17T15:04:00.001-07:00

Back in 2005, in a wonderful place called Bogliasco, near Genova, in Italy, thanks to a month Fellowship at the Bogliasco Foundation (Centro Studi Ligure per le Arti e le Lettere).
I had a studio, and the right inspiration to pull out some images from videos and photos I shot years earlier, mainly in Firenze.
I started to paint them with oil pastels, and thinking of how much I would love to see them animated, alive again on a screen, carrying all that beauty but also all the gravity of my experience and my struggle.