About Francesca Borgo

My research focuses on mankind's need to re-establish and nurture a long lost connection to the natural environment, endangered species, and people minorities - what I call ‘the other’.

To me, acknowledging 'the other' as equal and as much worthy of understanding and opportunities is prerequisite to respecting all that lives by our side and surrounds us.

My works invite viewers to feel the calmness and poetry of being in balance. They are like whispers and glimpses of how we could experience connectedness to nature, people, to the smallest of things.

Waves invariably suggest me this concept – their comings and goings, relentlessly, with calm and powerful dynamism.

Waves can be found in anything - tree branches slightly shaking in the morning breeze, a cat slowly stretching on a mat, the half-smile of an old woman, cello notes from a window, eyes of strangers meeting each other with openness. It’s like witnessing countless acts of beauty that can be given and taken, offered and enjoyed.

In the studio, I take those impressions and emotions and transform them into streams of sandy textures, first shaped by water and by my hands on the canvas, then smoothed by subtle chromatic transitions.

I love to use sand as a material because it’s deeply associated to the idea of a primeval bond between humans and the planet.

In my view, those grains of sand on the painting are like roots tying me to earth, soothing my sense of fragility, giving me perspective.

The painting is the beginning of a dialogue with the viewers, where they can feel at ease, allow old memories to resurface, play with their imagination, find the courage to speak up.

It’s a dialogue that can inspire anyone to embrace differences, change, and openness.

I deem my works are mainly influenced by modern and contemporary artists, such as Zao Wou-Ki, Zhang Daqian, Julie Mehretu, David Hammons, Wu Chi-Tsung. I'm also indebted by the suggestions coming from architects such as Zaha Hadid and Frank Gehry.

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I'm an Italian self-taught artist and I've been working professionally for almost five years, creating soothing and dreamy abstract landscapes.