Roberto Vallini is an Italian-greek in love with… greek nature! This is his inspiration as he creates magnificent fragments based on the beauties of the Aegean Islands!
Hellenic Daily News contacted him in Italy and we asked him to share his thoughts and feelings, which leads to the creations that you see below.
HDN: What is your inspiration?
Roberto Vallini: Since 2000, following the “similar vocation” of my father, I began to “work” roots and collect fragments to put on canvas. The root a shapeless mass, cleaned, modified and molded give you its heart. Its new forms, hardly emerging, touch you and speak to you. The root, slowly reveals its history. The new forms show its beauty and leave up to you the final choice: where should you stop, what should be the core? After the extracting effort comes the work to emerge the heart of the ancient root, the choice of the colors and the preservation technique. In this research of “communicating forms” the “fragments on canvas” tell you of faraway lands.
Sifnos
Why do you collect all these staff and what do you want to show?
Picked up, already partially worked by water and time, these fragments remember me the wind, the sea, the sun and the sky and the sensation they gave me the places where I collected them. I want to gift them a new life molding and giving them colors and new volumes. On canvas I try to give a new movement to their static form.
Antiparos
What is your connection to Greece?
I came, before the virus, many times a year, to visit my greek family: my daughter and their two children who live in Athens. Now we are half Italian and half Greek. We came, my wife and me, the first time in Sifnos, when our daughter was living there for a research for her graduation. We felt in love and came back every year. Later we visited other Islans: Milos, Patmos, Arky, Paros, Antiparos, Lipsi…
What are your thoughts about greek nature and specifically the geoscape in the islands of Aegean?
The beauty of the nature: olive trees, terraces, small hills, white sands, rocks like sculpture, blue and green sea. Hospitality: everywhere, especially in small islands you feel at home. Last but not least: on the earth on the beach you « meet » wooden fragments and roots that speak to you. The beauty of Greek Islands is a spring of ispiration for an artist.
Milos
Arky
Patmos
Learn more about his art here: www.robertovallini.art
