Lorella Paleni
Lorella Paleni is an Italian-born artist currently living and working in Paris.
She earned a BFA at the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice and completed her studies in 2015 with a Master's degree at Columbia University in New York.
Lorella has held solo exhibitions at the Galéria Mesta Levoča in Slovakia, at the Galerie de L'OpenBach in Paris, E.Tay Gallery in New York City, Magic Beans Gallery in Berlin and at the HB55 Kunstfabrik in Berlin; she has been featured in numerous group exhibitions in the United States, Europe and India.
Could you tell us more about your background and how you began creating art?
I was born and raised in a small town in Italy. My mom is a ceramic decorator and watercolor artist, and she has always supported my creative drive as a little girl. Creating has been a natural drive since I was a kid. I began studying painting at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia in Venice and later moved to NYC where I earned an MFA in Visual Arts from Columbia University.
What does your art aim to say to its viewers?
I like to think of art as a language and a mean to explore and connect. My first interest in painting came from the desire to reinvent the world as I knew it, to reimagine it, sometimes even to discover it. Like the act of playing, art has the capacity to be an act of creation and discovery. My work today reflects this spirit. My images are investigations of the things I greatly connect to, including the women in my life, the natural world, and animals.
Can you tell us about the process of creating your work? What is your daily routine when working?
I divide my working day into preparation time and creation time. The preparation time consists of the most practical but essential matters: gathering materials, preparing the supports, organizing the space, ect. While the creation time includes research, drawing, sketching, and finally painting. I usually spend the early hours of the day doing preparation work and prefer to keep the second half of the day for creation.
What is the essential element in your art?
Curiosity.
In your opinion, what role does the artist have in society?
I think the role of the artist is always changing depending on historical times, motivations, and the context. Depending on these many things an artist can take on the role of the observer, of the entertainer, of the soother, of the poet, of the revolutionary, ect. A quote that resonates with me is that of Cesar A. Cruz when he writes: “Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.”
