Graziella Mura
Graziella Mura is an Italian artist who expresses herself in her works in a surreal figurative context with the oil color technique. An enchanted but far from static atmosphere reigns in her works; the eyes of the subjects in fact seem to be the predominant elements in wanting to communicate the inner sky: the conscience, the soul, the deepest self. In these spaces of colors there is the strength of spirituality welcomed and experienced during meditation exercises, and accentuated in the markedly sensitive character of the artist. He has presented some personal exhibitions, participated in exhibitions in Italy and abroad, some works are part of American collections and recently other paintings are part of the "Lunar Codex" project founded by Dr Samuel Peralta in collaboration with NASA and Space X.
What is the purpose or objective of your work?
The aim and objective of my artistic work arises mainly from having to satisfy a need that arises from the depths of the soul, sometimes it is like a sudden impulse that forcefully imposes itself without any rational motivation, but which nevertheless must be achieved, materialized to be shared and shown. So it comes from the need to do, from the need to communicate, share and let those who want to stay with me come into my art house and host them.
How has your style changed over time?
My style has accompanied my life, it changes in the body, in the soul, it is a continuous evolution on this path that leads to making choices while also listening to one's emotions. Before my academic studies I really loved impressionism as an artistic movement and genre, but expressionism also captured and still captures a part of me that loves to feel free, I didn't appreciate anything else, everything else didn't occupy my heart, consequently I used this impressionism technique in painting. Subsequently, the study broadened my horizons, I saw and heard what I didn't see or hear before, a world opened up that allowed me to welcome new knowledge, feel interest and let myself be struck to the core by everything that throughout history there have been various artistic languages experimented by man. So freely and gradually over the years I have approached the creation of works always of a figurative genre towards a more defined realism of the image compared to the past.
What have critics and collectors said about your work?
I report here some excerpts written for me by some critics, collectors and curators who have entered into a sincere and direct relationship with the images of my works. The first piece, which I really liked, was written on the occasion of an exhibition by my painting professor, at the time a professor of painting at the Mario Sironi Academy of Fine Arts in my city and later a professor of painting in 'Academy of Fine Arts of Rome: “The colours, the lights of the wind and the sea cannot be seen, they can be felt; they belong to the arcane of sensibilities, of atmospheres. The wind speaks another language that pleases the eye. It is light, strong, unexpected, on the hill, in the pens, in the woods. Graziella's painting is a safe path into these mysteries. Emotions, dreams, the delicacy of the human, of the imaginary, meet swings of silences, of expectations. The “warmth”, the feeling is a fantastic background in his delicacy, an authority, a remarkable artist's empire. One wonders about this house of fantasy that she governs and one is surprised to have had her as a student" Professor Enzo Orti.
Francesco Revel (art critic) magazine “Paintings and Sculptures”: “There is a vein of so-called narrative art, which with forms and figures captured by emotion and play travels intimate paths, describes spaces stolen from memory, collected come in instinctive melancholy. These seem to me to be, in essence, the cornerstones and also the boundaries of the dominion of clowns and dreamers who populate Graziella Mura's painting. They are forms of men, but more often women, always within the limits of doubt, revealed by a certain sweetness of the face. They are characters of a decomposed metaphysics, as if diluted in the volumes up to the humble and fragile region of pastel. Portrayed in impossible observations as if watching their own dreams, yet entirely made from natural objects.
Maria Teresa Palitta (art critic): “The pictorial proposal reveals the intention of making art outside the norm. In fact, the narrative is focused on inner growth in the era of approximations, of frantic research, of secret anxieties, the assumption shines like a pearl from which the reflection of the soul is drawn. The soul in effect determines the style never separated from the purpose of revealing the beyond, that is, the fixed point from which the dynamism starts. The reasons for the theme emerge from the style, understood in their proverbial firmness: everything was created, everything comes from beyond; the creative genius is above the creature, which composes, does not create, however develops the elements, aggregates them, coordinates them, presents them as attributes of the being that yearns for the summit as a cosmic fragment of superhuman beauty. The setting is noble: from the small blade of grass, to the astonished faces, with the vermilion red, the green, the yellow and the tender density of the sky, an incorporeal mass overlying the enchanting language of love.
What are your most valued skills as an artist?
They are certainly the faces that I paint, I like to quote a very recent comment from a very good and established painter: "Your faces are unique and very interesting", but also the words and reactions of various people who had commissioned portraits of me. Hearing that those faces seemed alive and reading the emotion in their eyes was very gratifying, it meant I had managed to reveal the emotional and psychological complex of the subject. Another aspect of my painting that often arouses interest is the discourse. At first visual impact, the viewer tries to understand, listen and touch with the senses, with questions and interpretations, almost a desire to belong to that imagination and share the journey. When this happens, magic is created, it's like being inside a bubble of light where words no longer matter.
What artistic trends inspire your current work?
There are some artistic expressions which, despite belonging to a historical context very far from ours, create a strong emotional impact in me, they are those of the art of the 1400s - 1500s, with artists such as Giotto, Antonello da Messina, Perugino, Mantegna, Raphael, Botticelli. But also artists closer to our times such as Lucian Freud, Balthus, Frida Kahlo, Annigoni, Pirandello and others who together with these I was able to admire. Everything you love enters inside you, leaves a trace that you absorb even unconsciously, acts like an impulse and makes you want to touch colors and brushes to speak in silence.
