STEFANIA ORRÙ PART I:
Beyond appearances, decoding the nature of our existence
The verb ‘to decode’ is defined in the Cambridge Dictionary as ‘to discover the meaning of information given in a secret or complicated way’. Certainly, the nature of our very existence and the meaning of our coming into being in this world, which everyone who is reading this will have experienced, is pregnant with secrets and mystery. Humanity is shrouded by multiple obscuring veils which posit the essence of what we truly are beyond the boundaries drawn by the ritual mechanisms of daily life. In this limited realm of perception within which we spend much of our time, we habitually follow already walked paths, gaze at already seen vistas, think thoughts we have thought and do things we have done a thousand times over. Left unchecked, life can become overwhelmingly automatic, and in this state of a detached ‘going through the motions’, the singularly extraordinary nature of our being humans living on planet earth can be hidden from our view. What if visual art, both the making of it and the looking at it, could jolt us out of the trance of habitual living, and remind us of the exquisite majesty of our existence. What if it also embodied scientific discoveries about what exactly lies beyond the immediate surface of our existence. Beyond the physical appearances of objects — both those seemingly inanimate and those living — including our own bodies. What if it could make the mechanisms operating behind the visual world — invisible to the naked eye — psychologically, emotionally and indeed visually intelligible.
I recently had the good fortune of meeting an artist with profound sensitivity and insight into what makes us us. Stefania Orrù has spent her career voyaging into new and unknown realms of what makes up a human life. She expresses a sincerity and eloquence both in person and through her works of art that have enabled people to feel deeply connected with her and her way of perceiving the world around us and the significance of our place within it. Today I share with you the first part of a short series of exchanges between Stefania Orrù and I in which she unravels not only her own unique artistic process but at the same time peels away the layers of life as we know it, to reveal what lies beyond…
Zoë: in one of our first exchanges, you wrote to me that perception defines almost everything in our lives, and that learning to regain the capacity for intentional perceiving, and refining this capacity, is fundamental to our integrity. You also explained that a painting is like a mirror, whether it represents a face or just a collection of colours… that it is a mirror of what we perceive and of what we are, and — in rare cases — of the underlying mechanisms of what we could be, if enabled to connect with our essential being (Light!).
What is your understanding of the nature of perception?
Stefania: My story as a painter starts with an image of something, a perceiving of something and it was the image of myself: not as a specific personality but just as a human being. What is manifested in painting is not something that enters through the eyes, gets on the hands and then appears on the canvas or wherever. It’s really something that is formed, in someways, from what composes your inner being. When I was younger, at the beginning, it was very simple. What appeared on the canvas was an image of my body and the way I was feeling about being immersed in this — in all that exists — being composed by it. I wasn’t doing this very consciously, I slowly realised what I was doing as I kept on painting. Over time, my subject has become less “physical” and the images that were once reflections of my body became very stylised and began to represent what I could only describe as mechanisms that were turning on the inside.
Z: You mean not how the actual body and the organs function but the energy that binds us together as human beings. Essentially our essence, as alluded to in the phrase ‘a spiritual being having a human experience’ as opposed to ‘a human being having a spiritual experience’. So your work began to explore that mechanism?
S: Exactly (starting from the psychological level) And that went on for quite a long time. Then I expressed a need to represent my face, not specifically in a self portrait, but working on an image which was not only my face but a kind of bridge, a dialogue between what I think I am and this image slowly appearing on the surface of the painting — and this dialogue made the perception of being something more than what we usually are conscious of more powerful and subtle at the same time. The last passage I made delved further in to a kind of dissolving of the big parts that compose our being: into the perception that everything is made of very small particles and these particles are actually some kind of substance that we swim in. This substance is related to what we see and what we physically feel — because it is actually what we are made of — but it doesn’t necessarily need to be understood in a strictly physical way.
Z: Do you mean that we can touch the surface of something, even our bodies, and think that it’s solid, but that the reality of things is so much more fluid?
S: Yes. The way we perceive ourselves is extremely bound to very mental processes, we think we are made of two arms, two legs, the body in general and what it contains. But this kind of perception is just an instrument. What we can come to realise is that we are subject to a fundamental connection which energetically binds our body to everything that surrounds us. I think this realisation often happens for an artist, when he or she deals with the perception of light. Recently I relocated to Sicily and when I arrived, I had the feeling that I was surrounded by very strong light mixed up with a lot of darkness: through this mix of things I started to perceive colours a lot more and that created a different state in me. I’m realising that what we really see is like one big code. You obviously don’t see numbers or chemical formulas moving up and down and all around, and it’s not just one language but a very complex system of languages, but essentially it’s really just about being able to open that channel.
I’m not trying to say that we can fly or practice teleportation! (though perhaps we could) But just to realise that life exists on many more levels than it may initially appear to. The level of us being here in this reality, bound in a society, where we have our places and relationships and we eat and we go out and we work, is like a big game and it’s nice and has its significance: something that has value but it’s only one part, it’s not everything. I went through this experience of realisation. At one stage in my painting, I started to have this feeling of being very much in touch with some kind of presence, I can probably call it my essence? I think this came as a result of all the big faces I was painting, technically, and not only, they were very much related to ancient icons. So my paintings in that period were really this kind of bridge from my actual state and the potential there was in me. I would say the connection with God, but I don’t want to specify…it’s a fine line.
Z: An overarching sense of something beyond our comprehension maybe?
S: I think ‘beyond’ is the right word, when I started to feel this connection I suddenly realised — in a physical, emotional and mental sense — why our being here has such a big meaning. While before it was about either beauty or something more or less pleasant, more intensity or less intensity, it now became about grasping why I am here on a base level. And when I encountered this gift of experiencing this contact, suddenly I felt as though I understood the reason why we are so busy being caught up in this game, not only now but in past epochs projecting out towards the future. I realised what was of the most value, I suddenly thought…oh this makes sense. It’s clear to me now that whatever I go through makes sense because of what I feel, I can’t even say if it’s positive or not but through this mode of perception you can connect with what can be called the ‘essence’. Experiencing that connection really makes all the difference, that’s why it becomes very difficult to talk about. It’s no longer as simple as looking at the issue from the outside and saying “ok there is a chair there and a table, and a pot” but it becomes abundantly clear that we are swimming in this incredible complexity. Applied to what you do in art, for me, if before it was a face, now it’s like the need to paint all the particles of this face and these particles are all either smiling or questioning or doing something, and each one of these luminous dots are like the centre of a universe. So the face disappears, it is no longer important to form a recognisable image.
Z: Because it’s an emotion rather than an analytical exercise or process.
S: Exactly, you don’t know what it actually is and the emotion is really deep so you can’t even explain it with normal words like ‘sadness’ or ‘joy’. It’s something which can maybe only be explained with sounds: in fact, sometimes when I am in front of the paintings I’m working on in this period I feel sounds, whereas, before there was some kind of dialogue unfolding in my mind, words and sentences would form.
Z: It’s interesting that the whole words and complete sentences that you used to perceive entering your mind as you worked have become sounds, as though their particles have been scattered once more and reduced to their elemental state: and at the same time so have the faces you once painted. Have these two processes happened simultaneously, and as a natural thing?
S: Yes it’s all very natural, although I have to say that I wasn’t looking for this passage [development]. My last exhibition was based around figurative subjects, it was called ‘Prima Luce’ [First Light] and really it recounted the story of a birth. I felt very strongly about the exhibition. For me it was about calling not upon the moment of my birth because I’m not sure how it unfolded, but the feelings I have that surround it. Essentially, the works were the contrast between darkness and light: the subject was in full light and the rest was in full darkness.
Many things that have come in my life have been connected to what I was about to do, and they inspired me, whether it was meeting someone or focussing on something in particular. All my life it’s been like this, in this particular story which lead up to that exhibition I was very triggered by the moment when a child is born and I began to really think about this moment. It all started because I felt in someways that I was coming to life again after a kind of death. This is obviously all psychological but the period running up to that exhibition was the first moment in my path that I could feel this shift… then, hopefully, you keep on feeling it for the next one hundred and twenty years of your life! (Laughs)
Z: Something had to fall away and dissolve for you to move in to this new space?
S: I suppose so, but after this coming into life the image completely disappeared. You know I was always there in my paintings for many many years and then I vanished and instead of me now there is everything else — which is me as well! For example I get a lot of inspiration from looking at images of ancient carpets, something I have loved for many years, but I was never able to work directly with up until now. I appreciate how, in a certain way, they mirror nature — an abstract nature where there are still flowers, colours and shapes but it is like a natura sistemata [an arranged nature]. I start by finding a pattern and I discover the underlying structure of this ordered nature and based on this structure I start to add lumps of colours which can be like flowers or leaves for example. These colours create a vibration on the surface, then I can connect these colours using other lines or maybe I make them disappear and then appear again and there is this kind of stratification of levels of visions that are no longer an image or representation that follows the original pattern, but are the intuitive perception of…almost everything, in some ways.
Z: You’re creating something that’s vibrating at so many different levels, it’s not reducible to one thing, but is many things: a reflection of the multitude that is the unfolding of the universe as it is experienced. I’m usually much moved by figurative art and have never really been wildly interested in non-figurative artworks. Even though they’re not strictly figurative in the sense that we’re used to, your new paintings which bridge the physical and the non-visible converted me. I had the feeling when I first saw your paintings two years ago that this duality enables you to speak soul to soul through a physical medium. In communicating soul to soul, what you create is a kind of ongoing narration — something more than an object — more than a representation of a body or a map of a vision of the world around us. The physical object embodies — and as such is a conductor — of life’s distilled essence. Is that why people feel such a strong connection to your work?
S: It’s a kind of mystery for me that I can’t really explain. But sometimes I think that I basically started to paint not because I wanted to but in a response to some kind of call. And I think that my position towards painting and art in general is not very modern, it’s ancient, akin to people who were commissioned to create either a Madonna, a Saint or represent the stories of the bible in medieval times. That whole area of art is very much what makes me tremble, what gives me that kind of “wow” feeling and it’s always been like that from the beginning. So I think the artistic position I inhabit makes me stand in front of a painting as if it’s not mine. The process doesn’t begin with thoughts like ‘I want to say this’ or ‘I want to do this’, it is a mystery that I experience. This whole thing, it’s like I’m here in front of this thing, I am pushed to do something: let’s see what I’m pushed to do and then I do it. But I cannot say that what comes out comes from me, from my ‘self’ as were saying before. I don’t know where it comes from and I think it’s as if I am an absence, and my absence doesn’t disturb the passage of information.
Z: You’re creating space for it to rush in, you’re not blocking it with your own agenda?
S: Yes, not trying to fill it in with something that I think is important, because even if it could be of some quality, it would be less than what happens without me getting involved.
Z: What you wrote to me before our meeting was that key is the balance between how a work of art is made and the end aesthetic product. You can have something that is aesthetically very precise but which is completely without soul.
S: Yeah. When I was working with images — and it’s something that maybe I will do again — I mean I hope I will reach that level where these two things can act like a swing between the seen and the unseen… I think I can regain the power to paint things because it’s a nice thing to do. The dimension of us being humans here on this planet, all together, doing what we have to do it is of some value: if you sit here and you look out the window and see some kind of essential beauty to it and would like to paint it, then why not? However, it is just one perception, unless you have gained a type of perception that allows you to reach the other side even just looking at the window and maybe just painting it exactly like it is. But you asked another question….in the figurative paintings I created I had a few things that acted like reference points. If it was a face I was painting, there were two eyes or the one eye, and the nose and mouth and all my movements were spinning around these things. Whether it was a face or a body, still I was kind of guided as there was this rule — the rule was the image and it made me feel secure in a way. It was like ‘ok, I know how to do this’. But on the other hand, it created a kind of embarrassment because the final image was diminished in respect to the potential that was contained inside the process.
Z: That’s so interesting because we as observers won’t necessarily feel that but you know because you felt that rush of whatever it was…
S: Probably. When I paint, most of the time I don’t exactly know what I’m doing. If we’re talking about this new way of painting that has emerged recently, which is defined by more abstract considerations, I do start from images but I don’t use them as a centre to go around: the image is more like some kind of door, the opening to start a journey. For example the last painting I made, which was for an exhibition I was going to have, began as a kind of carpet [as mentioned earlier], and became so many things in-between the beginning and the end. I was so triggered by the process, I followed it and at the end the painting was very different from how it was at the beginning. I really couldn’t control it. One week before the exhibition opening I had spent two weeks working on this process of oscillation and I was considering the painting lost, I was saying “ok this painting is not coming out!” I was feeling sorry and tired and I had one painting missing for the exhibition. Two days before the opening I had one last meeting with this painting. At the end it wasn’t what I expected but I did feel that the painting had finally reached what he wanted to reach and so thank God! (Laughs) I thought, if you’re happy, I’m happier than you! Then it became my favourite. It is a slightly maternal approach, sometimes I do feel a little bit like I am a mother trying to set things up and avoid anybody getting hurt!
Z: That doesn’t sound strange, I’ve never heard anyone talk about it in that way but I’m not surprised by it. It’s beautiful.
S: Yeah. Before this new phase I always felt like there was some kind of embarrassment at the end, whereas now I am free from my paintings once they are done. I really feel, not a distance, but some kind of detachment. The painting is completely itself, if it comes out of course, if it doesn’t come out it’s just not meant to be or maybe it needs more time, years perhaps, turned against the wall to wait. What I’ve noticed is that this process is more natural and less based on the will of the painter, of the artist, the will of the artist is really nothing. The only will you can call as such is the will to do it! (Laughs)
Z: Yes, actually sitting on the seat to write or getting in front of the canvas to paint can be a real challenge. Procrastination stands in the way of creativity for me, so often, or is it fear?
S: You know what I do, I go in the studio every day really, but every morning before actually entering the room where I paint I say to myself that I have to do many other things (laughs). It’s a sort of a winding path, like before I paint I have to set up the shoes in that way or… it’s never the same, but it’s a sort of domestic path that eventually leads me there.
It’s such a strange phenomenon, it makes no sense to do this but many people struggle with procrastination.
But this is what I was really trying to say before, what we think we are is not what we are and so even like you just said, you can watch yourself, observe yourself and still feel the impulse to ask who is doing what I am doing and who is thinking what she or he should and shouldn’t do and why is this? So I think the more we get rid of the incessant thinking about what we are and the more we actually connect with who we are, what we really are becomes mind-blowing! It’s probably not in humans’ will to decide whether to sit down and put ourselves at the disposal of this mechanism or whatever we want to call it, but then it’s also not about us, or our will to get the connection.
I see it as a kind of grace, if you put yourself in the position where you are gratefully receiving whatever might be received then it may or not arrive, but it’s your job to put yourself in that state. Otherwise, creativity or that connection with the divinity within us or whatever you want to call it, can never arise.
Personally, it makes me feel safe because it allows me to realise that this is not some kind of imaginary thing that I go through, no, it’s real — this is reality. So this connection is real, it’s not a question of philosophy, although philosophy can probably help you to evolve. This connection is obviously something that you become more and more able to feel and to follow with practice and that is a great exercise. People don’t always want to do it because in some ways it takes you away from things which are more pleasant on another level.
One of the only times that something has happened to me in such a way that I feel I can identify with you now — when your talking about the safety you feel in this connection with what lies beneath immediate everyday reality — was during my philosophy degree. As I devoured works by my favourite philosophers I would reach some kind of peak where there would be a complete moment of absolute euphoria in which it was as if I glimpsed everything and understood everything: the realm I entered was beyond the constructs of words or images. This lasted a few moments and then paled away and the cycle would begin again with this feeling of hopelessness, that I would never again understand myself and my place within the world to that level. Philosophy was and now art is too, an antidote to the feelings of discomfort I feel, as though I am habitually inhabiting a world in such a way that I am missing the fundamentals of my very being here. It’s like you were saying earlier, in some ways this reaching for the infinite impedes you from enjoying the “easy life”, relaxing and just getting a drink with your friends! Those other things which we love doing are important but I know that if I just did those I would be denying who I am.
What I’m trying to experiment with now is if domestically speaking, the simple things can be experienced on another level: as you stir the sauce, or hoover the floor! Not to take away the ‘highness’ but to bring the infinite into the everyday. You know, domestic duties are really important because they are simple but they make the difference in your life. They’re not a case of well I can do or not do it — it is important to do it but at the same time you don’t need to make a big fuss about it. I would like to treat art in this way.
Treating simple tasks as opportunities to elevate oneself, and practices which are usually considered to be elevated as simple everyday tasks is an interesting idea. Why can’t they be interchangeable? Part of the reason I think we shy away from domestic duties is because they feel like chores. And conversely, many of us shy away from making or even looking at or getting interested in art because it appears elitist: and many galleries are happy to keep it that way! Your point of view is so refreshing, it allows for more freedom to swing from the mundane to the elevated with ease and without judgement.
Z: When treated as a domestic duty that one can do, is it possible that art can be made in a more direct way? Obviously you have to have access to a great amount of time to spend at home [in the studio]… Practically speaking, it’s easier with something like poetry, you only need a piece of paper and a pencil. While for me making art involves a lot of different types of dust and colours which are very messy and what I do is very physical as well. This physicality is good because it offers me a kind of slowness in which to create. My paintings don’t happen in a flash, the process is really nice but it’s a big effort to do it. In the beginning there is nothing really, it’s just dust put together. But then it hardens and I can start to smooth things over, the process involves a lot of water as well. I would like to think about art in the same way that I think about cooking, making my bed or cleaning the house (allowing that I have a good relationship with these activities or even more that the time I spend at home is all used to experience some kind of intensity). This attitude maybe comes from reading Emily Dickinson’s poetry, a figure who I really love. She is very domestic in the way she treats being a poet. For three years I spent time with her daily. I had one book upstairs and one downstairs because I was always moving in the house and she really was almost like a presence. At the time I was reading a few poems a day, it was really like being elbow to elbow with her. Shoulder to shoulder.
S: That’s a nice mirroring of how I imagine other people feel about you and your work, it’s possible to feel the presence of a creator in an artwork even if you haven’t met them in person or even watched or read an interview with them. In my experience your presence is there — I mean, you say the work is no longer yours when it’s finished but it must somehow be you. Even if you are the channel, everything that you are must somehow be translated or “bottled” into a kind of essence of you. So even if someone sees your work without meeting you as I did initially, or just like with you and Emily, they connect with this essence even if you’re not present in the room.
I’ve met some people that had a painting of mine or were about to have one and yes there is a very high level of connection there, but my strategy is to believe that I am only the channel and I think it’s good to stay this way: the alternative is quite dangerous!
Text, 2019 © Zoë Atkinson Fiennes and Stefania Orrù
In Part Two of this series of exchanges between Stefania Orrù and I, we will be talking in depth about the practice of making icons, the concept of beauty and the spiritually illuminating properties of light.
STEFANIA ORRÙ PART TWO:
ICONS, Overturning the aesthetic canon of our time.
Zoë: I wanted to ask you about the Icon, which we have already touched upon, but which I know to be a central thread in to your work.
Stefania: Well in a certain period people developed a specific way of producing an object that wasn’t an ‘artwork’ in the way we understand it now, nor did it directly represent something. Instead, it was a kind of door to experience. During the period in which the practice of making icons began, the creation of these objects signalled a kind of awakening of truth to some extent: the icon was not a representation of something but it actually was that thing. The object in itself had the power to ‘break the veil’ and put you in touch with the beyond. And obviously at that time icon production was a religious practice because during that period religion was what enabled you to connect with the highest things. The practice of making icons entails both considerations surrounding the object’s spiritual capacity and strict rules about the specificities of its physical form: that’s why I feel so connected to icons. I basically understood that for me, a work of art or a painting that I create has that specific purpose; it is an object that does something to you, it does something to me and many other people who look at it. This effect is not the purpose I wanted it to have from the outset as I’ve talked about previously, but it is in and of itself an entity that impresses on people’s perceptions, on their emotions. The proof of this was found in my talking to people and having them tell me what they were feeling in response to my work. So an artwork is not only a mirror, because ‘the mirror’ is something that merely reflects something; while instead the artwork, the icon, is like a force of nature: like a storm which gathers you up with it. You become a part of it and you also perceive yourself as being part of it at the same time. It is indeed a solid object, and it actually stays solid for many years — I hope! But it is not merely a ‘reflective’ surface that shows you a dimension beyond your seemingly physical limitations. Beyond that, it is an object that assimilates you into an alternative perception of reality for a series of brief moments, and that kind of feeling can really linger! The artist who is called to make an icon has to have a certain level of understanding of the mechanism I’m talking about — obviously I am not saying that I have a level or not but the way I put myself in front of a work of art is extremely similar. In the past I did work with a different approach, sometimes I did just say “ok, I am going to do a still life” — I am an artisan and many other things as well as an artist. But recently it’s really become almost impossible to stand in front of a painting if it’s not to follow that process. A process that is ‘innescato’, which means when you switch something on and then it takes on a life of its own.
Z: A shift happens, a kind of door opens in the mind?
S: ‘Innescare’ means for example when you hear a single word and that word causes many trains of thought to open up in your mind. So, that is I think the nature of the foundation from which I begin.
Icons are made in such a way that you can recognise what is being represented on them: human figures can be saints, God or Jesus, a woman with a baby (the Madonna), or angels. These figures are a result of a collective imagination that has been handed down to us from past generations. We could forget this history and still grasp that these figures are stylised — this stylisation is not intended to simplify but instead to express that although the icons refer to human figures, these figures are not reducible to the physical body. These figures and especially their faces, never followed a descriptive objective; they were not necessarily beautiful in the way we define ‘beauty’ today, or even in line with the classical conception of beauty. The Romans and the Greeks had a concept of beauty that was magical and which revered certain proportions, while there is nothing of this in icons. The beauty of these faces is perceived using another kind of sense which does not form part of human beings’ five basic senses. It’s not a sixth sense — I wouldn’t know what number of sense it is! But I can say that this way of relating to the icon surely has an aesthetic impact that is meant to do something to you beyond your response to the visual aspect of the icon alone.
I trialled a workshop with some children and we used a few images of some faces of ancient icons and I said to them that they could begin by working from these images but that they needn’t make copies of them. I said “just paint what that image makes you feel” and I was worried that it would be too difficult for them to grasp, but it turned out that for them it was totally normal! And what came out proved to be very significant; one child in the process of copying an icon — not too badly — began the process of changing it a bit by moving from one side to another, adding a few things and then taking away a few things, and I could see that he was so triggered by the process! And then he suddenly covered the whole face with two colours, which formed a kind of mask. Only on one side of the face could you still see what he had done before. As was the case for many other children, you could see that they were painting their faces without even knowing it. So it is, that when you are presented with the image of an icon and you really look at it, it can signal the opening of a process by which your own face can appear through the connection you feel with the icon’s own luminary capacities — and this is the point.
Getting back to the icon process, I think that in our contemporary times, the fact that the aesthetic canon of an icon is far richer than the beauty of the image that it represents is of great significance. The icon is already something in and of itself that goes beyond and that is a result not only of the fact that the image is stylised but also the fact that the reason why that image is stylised is because the character represented is already beyond himself or herself. In this mode of creating artworks it’s not the man for example that is being depicted — the specific man that is alive in that moment sitting on the sofa, holding a piece of paper like you are now — no, it’s what he’s meant to be, what he potentially is, what he has been, what he will be… and thus an iconic figure contains all human beings which are somehow bound together in the icon. Now we’re not in a position to understand many things surrounding the practice of making ancient icons, it’s complex and bound to historical realities. However, we can observe the techniques they used and the power they embody, and we can still perceive what that content does to us, even now.
Z: Tell us more about your painting workshop entitled ‘From the Icon to the Face: meeting with the mystery of beauty and the identity of the sign’. You are of course in your own right an artist who has explored the practice of ancient pictorial techniques over the last twenty years, but you also hold a masters degree in experimental Psychology, Social Sciences and Education and have compiled significant research in the field of visual arts. Tell us about your school and museum-based icon workshops throughout Umbria and further afield in France.
S: The workshop aims to provide the foundational technical bases for the painting of icons with materials which are as close as possible to those used in the historical tradition of icon production; in addition to drawing techniques — most specifically drawing from life — and a lesson on how to translate visual perception into individual expression. The Face is a central theme in ancient icons which has maintained its significant relevance in art today. Indeed, the sensitive perceptive experience of each individual is hinged on the Face. By definition, the icon is not a portrait, but a real, timeless image that figuratively expresses the relationship with the ineffable and is therefore a vehicle for passing from the visible to the invisible. What I believe to be of great value in the contemporary approach to the ancient icon is the possibility of an encounter with a beauty which differs from that of the aesthetic canon of our time — a canon based almost entirely on exteriority. By focusing on a stylised image, designed with the intention of overcoming the visible and meeting with a deeper understanding of human being, it is possible to open the observer to a more authentic contact with himself, herself or their self. Thereby, inspiring a creative process in a group of individuals that does not aim for consensus but instead for individual authenticity. The icon can play an important role in triggering and developing an authentic creative process in individuals who are so immersed in the contemporary fabric of society that it is to their personal detriment. This renewed authenticity of expression is especially inspired during the observation and analysis of signs, and even letters of an alphabet that express a different kind of beauty. The materials used during the workshop are natural and the process of their production is simple. As such they can even be used by small children, opening the possibility for an understanding about and immediate contact with the elements of nature through their direct use. The pigments, the cotton cloth, the chalk, glue, wood and gold, in addition to the egg all boast a direct reference to natural elements. Every ingredient used in the construction of the icon is a potential journey in to the fields of chemistry, biology, and artisanal crafts — such as carpentry and textile production — and their history; in this sense the icon is also a vehicle that exposes adults and children alike to a world which lies beyond paint cans filled with unidentifiable materials. A world where they can discover plants, metals, minerals and organic elements that ought to be known first of all as elements that reside naturally in nature. Then, through crucially comprehensible procedures these raw materials can be combined to create the necessary ingredients to create an artefact: an object through which one can deeply express oneself.
Z: How did the practice of icon making begin?
S: A very useful article written by Paolo Fundarò, also an artist with a great passion for this technique, reads: ‘According to the art historian Thomas F. Matheus, the construction, composition and images of well-known Christian icons represent the natural evolution of religious panels being produced in the late ancient Pagan world. Indeed, a precious treasure comprising of twenty-two Pagan icons dating between the second and fourth centuries emerged almost entirely unscathed from the Fayyum sands. A couple of panels found in other contexts show that Pagan sacred images were common in the Mediterranean world and were diffused beyond Egypt. The lack of pictorial documents between the fourth and sixth centuries should not lead us to think that Pagan and Christian icons were not present. Indeed, Pagan icons continued to be produced until Christianity finally established itself. At the beginning of the eighth century, the theologian Giovanni Damasceno was embarrassed by comparisons between Christian and Pagan icons. However, there are multiple correspondences and conformities between the painted panels depicting Pagan gods and those that emerged following the birth of Christianity. For example, both were characterised by thin panels with fluted frames protected by sliding covers, depicting half or full frontal figures. Other similarities are found between the panels in terms of composition and iconography: a fixed gaze, halo, throne, and military or equestrian clothing. It’s clear that the Pagan devotee and the Christian believer were gathered together by the tremendous mystery and the fear that emanated from the powerful gaze of the divine presence that scrutinised them: emanating through the eyes of the icon’.*
Z: What about the place of the icon in the modern era, how was it translated and interwoven into modern culture?
S: Simply quoting Wikipedia, ‘In 1904, the restoration of Russian artist Andrei Rublev’s Trinity marked the rediscovery of the icon by modern aesthetics, an event which would shortly thereafter spark an obsession with icons among the Russian intelligentsia. In 1911 during his trip to Moscow, French artist Henri Matisse referred to the city’s icons as the finest examples of medieval heritage artworks, instructing European artists to look to icon painters for inspiration rather than the Italian masters. Both Vladimir Tatlin and Natalia Goncarova began their artistic careers by painting icons. American artist Andy Warhol also stated that he was inspired by the Russian icon, adopting the recognisable method of a repetition of multiple elements’*. Even in our contemporary culture ancient icons and artefacts still serve as possibilities to encounter an alternative beauty and the tremendous sense of mystery that surrounds our being in this world. They are a chance to come face to face with our ancestors, who themselves perceived this same sense of wonder through the contemplation of iconic images. The capacity icons contain to bridge the ‘here and now’ and the ‘beyond’, and to engender sensations of a connection with the divine in any who would care to observe them, has stood the test of time.
Z: Do you experience art as having therapeutic aspects?
S: I don’t personally see art as a form of therapy, what I do believe in however is the power of the experience. The challenge is if one can create the right conditions to enable others to experience something significant. I started to have the idea for the workshop after having read the introduction to a book by Pavel Nikolaevic Evdokimov and a book by Pavel Florenskij, both of whom write about icons and the aspects we’ve been discussing here. Upon reading these books I just felt that I could personally leave the icon behind in my own work but at the same time I realised that it was possible to reproduce the experience I had undergone and share it with others — not exactly the way I had moved through it personally of course — for me it was the process of painting the face and destroying it and then painting it again and destroying it, a very psychological process. But I came to a realisation that this process which has stayed with me could be developed, and it has indeed become this workshop. I am not an icon expert and my use of ancient techniques is surely not orthodox, but I believe in the power of images and in the creative process that can be triggered. I have a vast amount of energy to channel into this work and I was very happy with how the project faired recently in France. My aim is to share these ancient practices with both children and adults, particularly in schools. I will say that I have worked with adults in this way previously but I’m aware that they often experience difficultly when attempting to get rid of their boundaries. The problem is that they are too often overly attached to the outcome…to the idea of “succeeding” or “failing”.
Z: It sounds like a lot of adults could benefit from reconnecting with their capacity for free and innate individual expression. Children are often less bound by the various sticky webs we weave over ourselves as adults or which are weaved over us, constraints self-imposed or otherwise that limit our sense of self and freedom to live as we wish and be who we really are. Where adults fail and stay down, children fall and often just get up again and brush it off as if nothing of significance happened!
S: Yes, for children it’s not really falling, and if there is a feeling of failure it seems to last few seconds! Then it’s not a failure anymore it’s something else — it’s just a stage in the development of what they are creating. While for adults, they get so attached to an idea and if it doesn’t come out the way they think it “should”, a feeling of frustration overwhelms them and can completely block them. I always say that the workshop is for everyone, from eight years old to 120! And there is no need to have prior skills or be experienced. I say this because I don’t want the final work that is produced as the physical end-product of the workshop to become more important than the experience that a participant moves through.
Z: So it’s about putting aside that either/or mentality, the either ‘it’s good or I failed’ attitude, and just leaning into the value of the experience rather than trying to leave with a perfected image.
S: Yes, you just have to pick up the brush and do it! In this case what counts is the fact that you look at something that has depth. The reason why I begin with the icon is that the icon is not beautiful in a common way, it’s strange, and straight away you are dealing with something that doesn’t make you feel “normal”. It unbalances you, it brings out a range of reactions, a long way away from “oh, I’m going to do a very nice drawing of that pot of flowers”.
Which, actually, is something that we were reflecting on in the very beginning of this conversation (Part 1 of interview), that you can do a really excellent drawing of a flower in a pot but it could also be completely devoid of feeling and can leave you completely devoid of feeling: which is not what the power of art is about. It’s clear in a work of art when the outcome was more important than the journey — there’s nowhere to go beyond the object.
For more details about Stefania’s Orrù’s past workshops click here