Francesca Borgo

STATEMENT I'm a self-taught Italian painter, based in Treviso, near Venice, Italy. Art invariably gifts me with time. Time to feel connected to land, sky, water and to my own skin, story and meaning. The idea of connectedness is what embodies my aesthetic research, visually represented by waves made of sand and color. Waves cannot exist as a standalone. And far from being this a defect, with their comings and goings they suggest me power, dynamism, the calmness and poetry of being in balance. I find waves even in the smallest of things - tree branches slightly shaking, a cat slowly stretching on a mat, the half-smile of an old woman, cello notes from a window, eyes of strangers meeting each other for a brief moment. It’s like witnessing countless acts of beauty that I want to be part of my paintings. In the studio, I take those impressions and emotions and transform them into streams of sandy textures, first shaped by water and by my hands on the canvas, then smoothed with layers and layers of color. To me sand is an indispensable material, because it’s deeply associated to the idea of a primeval bond to the planet. In my view, those grains of sand on the painting are like roots tying me to earth, soothing my sense of fragility and giving me perspective. I like to think the painting is the beginning of a dialogue with the viewers, where they can feel safe to embrace openness and to be part of a whole. My works are mainly influenced by modern and contemporary artists, such as Zao Wou-Ki, Zhang Daqian, Julie Mehretu, David Hammons, Wu Chi-Tsung. I'm also indebted by the suggestions coming from architects such as Zaha Hadid and Frank Gehry. | BIO A self-taught painter, she works internationally on residential, hotel and hospitality projects. Her intimate and ethereal works are in private collections mainly in the USA, Europe and the UK. In June 2022 one of her paintings has been selected by the Royal Academy of Arts for the Summer Exhibition in London, UK.