Flaminia Bonciani: Infinite Oscillations
Born in Rome but raised across continents, Flaminia Bonciani received her Bachelor of Arts with Honors at the Rome University of Fine Arts and after years of research and development, created her own oil-based spray paint, which she uses in her practice to create unique effects through personalized blends of color. Bonciani’s abstract paintings express her unique perspective through a vivid palette, making each piece a vibrant exploration of creativity and imagination
How did your creative journey begin?
Although I’ve always wanted to be an artist, ,my family wanted me to follow my father's steps, so they made me study math and economics throughout most of my life. When I finally had the chance and the courage to rebel, I signed myself in the Art Academy in Rome. It was the year 2018. It marked a new beginning and the start of what I consider my true mission in life.
Where do you find inspiration for your work?
As a result of my work being more personal than representational, I’m attracted to other artists more thematically rather than aesthetically. When I relate to them aesthetically is because I find elements of magic and surreal worlds. I relate to artists who have mystical or shamanic elements like Rothko, Max Ernst, Alphonse Mucha, or Jackson Pollock, who is also a reference for his physical approach to the canvas, dancing around it like I do. I’m also fascinated by Asian contemporary artists. Although captivated by their chosen palette, I often find more elements of correlation by digging their motives further. A clear example comes from So Youn Lee’s art. The South Korean artist not only creates in soft pastel and neon colors but aims at depicting a sort of misfit who can find a comfortable home in her ethereal dimension. I can definitively relate to that, considering my story. Another Asian artist I admire is Taiwanese-American James Jean whose juxtapositions of layers I find incredibly satisfying to look at. I can relate to Jean’s intention to disorient the audience and to his ways of suspending abstract shapes in time and space. Yoko Matsumoto’s works attract me for their apparently contradicting elements of simplicity and depth. The Japanese artist’s practice is the result of a long meditation journey on colors where abstract gestures take control but never overwhelm them. Another artist from Japan I admire is Chikuwa Miel for her fantastic portrayal of colorful anime lost in space.Among my references is also Taiwanese artist Huang Po Hsun for his ability to convey a sense of nostalgia and emptiness in a space apparently filled with many overlapping elements. I can also relate to these artists for their recurring references to anime. In fact, the swooshes and swirls I make with spray-paint gestures refer to a Japanese cartoon I grew up with (“ Creamy Mami, the magic angel”), which is about an unpopular schoolgirl, who, using a magic wand, can transform into a magical star. Other references include Cy Twombly and Julie Mehretu as they are both abstract expressionist, in particular informal gestural and my art can be inscribed in that category too, and British artist Fiona Rae, for her ability to go beyond the modern idea of painting and for her complexity of elements and use of color palette.
How has your work evolved over the last few years?
When I first started painting, I was very concentrated on figurative elements. I used to create digital collages where I mixed up backgrounds of Californian landscapes with photos I took of my friends as models, and other elements I took from the internet. I then painted everything on big scale canvases using palettes mainly inspired from the vaporwave aesthetics. I’ve always preferred oil paint to acrylics for its unique quality of reflecting light and creating more contrast in colors. At the time I was still using oil paint and brush. However, with time, I realized I needed to shift towards a more personal approach in my practice, and I developed a new technique which allowed me to render the ethereal and magical effect I wanted to appear on canvas. I developed the first oil based spray paint in the world, and this is what I use now in my everyday work. With oil paint being an homage to the great masters of my culture, and spray paint an element of freedom and rebellion, I think my identity as an artist can be found in this dichotomy. I now work with the canvas on the floor, and through many different layers I finally wait for the image I want to emerge, using the spray around it in a sort of dance. My work is now a place of psychological survival. The painting is where I can show my true self because in the world my self is battered by general ideology and by my personal background. My painting is a place where I can transcend the big Other in the real world. Art is my shaman, and through her guidance I can access the Transcendent Other which is a place where I’m free to explore my true sense of self.
What does a typical day in the studio look like for you, and how has your art practice grown or changed?
I am currently on a full time MA program at City and Guilds of London Art School in London, and I will be graduating in September of this year. Because I use toxic materials like turpentine, I am working in a location that is separate from the main studios: a wooden shed. I go to work in my shed everyday and I call it “the magic shed”, because as soon as I enter the shed , the magic happens, and I'm able to separate myself from the real world, and from what Lacan called the “Symbolic” order. When I enter the shed, I position my canvas on the floor, put on my gas mask, and usually work on a 150 x 150 cm size. I used to begin with creating layers of turpentine diluted oil color, to then go over them with my oil spray paint, but that has quite changed. I have recently introduced Indian ink, glitter and oil pastels in my practice, after having experimented with them on a number of works on paper. Therefore, the first layers I’m creating are now made of a mixture of ink and oil pastels, and only after they dry, I go over them with spray paint. I usually add shapes and non identified objects floating in space and keep on adding until I cover every reminiscence of recognizable object or person from the outside world.
Which experiences have impacted your work as an artist?
I think the main experiences impacting my work can be found in my childhood. I was raised by psychologically abusive parents and that has left an indelible mark on my psyche. I had to erase almost all of my childhood memories to protect my adult self from trauma, and that is what I am investigating in my art. Nonetheless, I am not interested in depicting a traumatic experience, but rather a space of survival, that is the space my mind created to survive all those years of unimaginable suffer. I’m trying to portray my interior realm in an ecstatic experience of enjoyment. That is why my art is in constant change,: as I dig further and further into this interior realm, I keep on having new visions and share them to the world.
How has social media impacted your work?
I think social media today is an extremely powerful tool. First of all, through social media, I have access to an endless source of information that would be otherwise impossible to obtain in the last century. For example, I created archives on instagram that can vary from reference images, to galleries I’m interested in, to talented artists I’m constantly observing.
Secondly, social media grants me direct access to art collectors, magazines and galleries that would have otherwise never found me. It’s a strong connecting tool and must be used with intelligence.
Finally, social media gives me a chance to present myself and my work to the work, and it’s important to always observe how my image is perceived and received by the public, and to be able to be flexible and adapt myself to the ever changing requests of such a strong presence in our lives.
Your work has a very strong color palette; how do you decide what colors to use for each piece?
My palette is directly linked to the message I want to convey in my art, and the colors are my medium through my interior realm and my personal journey. Art to me is closely related to the shaman in its way of seeing the world as a continuous tale needing to be told. Just like a shaman, art shapes the story of the cosmos as it reveals itself, in its unique act of generosity towards humanity. Art’s ways of being in the world don’t require language and overrun cultural limitations. Art functions in the imaginary register, quite like a shaman does. When art and its creator are aligned, they shape the void of the Thing and generate the miracle of form. They transcend together the limits of time and space and meet the unspeakable, becoming one in infinite oscillations in and out of human psyche. Via my act of painting, art grants me access to the Real straight through the imaginary, and lets me encounter the Transcendent Other, who hugs me while I swim in incandescent waters.The word ecstasy comes from the Greek “ekstasis” and it means: to stand outside of or transcend oneself. Art is my shaman and my medicine man; inside its magical portal I can heal myself and travel to other dimensions, wrapped in unconceivable ecstasy. The spray-can in my hands turns into a magic wand, through which I can metaphorically access the Transcendent Other; I can swirl the spray-can, enter a new dimension and explore what’s inside. While the Eleusinian Mysteries had real magic, I have my paint magic.
Website: www.flaminiabonciani.com
Instagram: @flaminiabonciani