Francesco Ruspoli | United Kingdom
Art expresses a fundamental part of what it means to be human. It is through art that the conflicts of life can be explored, better understood, brought to the surface and put into new relations with each other. I believe we are living in a time of unprecedented breakdown in human relationships and interactions, stretching from the individual and personal level to the geopolitical end of the spectrum. We tend to think of interactivity in terms of technology these days rather than as human feeling and connection.
My art is meant to directly challenge this state of affairs and re-invigorate and re-inspire the emotional and spiritual dimensions of human life. This is inevitably in direct conflict with much of what we see around us in our world now.
My work is an exploration of relational space and its shifting possibilities within the contemporary world in which we all dwell. I seek to express a certain defiant romanticism that insists that emotions are precious, that meaning is creative and that there is a world beyond commodities.
By using a strikingly vibrant palette, each painting presents a symphonic dance of colour where subtle gradation and dramatic contrast express nuances of emotion and sensuous physicality. It offers a timely reminder of our shared embodied life with its hopes and dreams, pain and loss, and the poignancy of yearning. Thus, the eternal human dance of reaching out and holding back is movingly enacted - with the viewer included.
Sleeping Mother
Contemporary Art Station: Tell us about how you got started. When did you know you wanted to be an artist?
This is a difficult question… I think I am in a constant state of emergence as an artist. We are all born unique, and part our uniqueness involves expressing a distinct vision of humanity and our world. This vision unfolds and seeks expression over our whole lifetime. For me, this vision seeks expression in art.
I was fortunate to have been brought up in Antibes in the Cote d’Azur region of Southern France, which is suffused with colour, light and the spirits of so many great artists. As a child, I would play not far from the village where Picasso spent his last years. The natural environment spoke deeply to me, and I feel that this place with all its rich tapestry of artistic history entwined with my DNA.
Whilst studying Economics at Nice University, I began to use oils and canvas to play with line, form and colour. Perhaps it was a rebellion against the more ‘conventional’ life offered by the academic course I had felt compelled to follow but left my creative impulse unfulfilled. It was this time that I knew I had found my true vocation in life – to be an artist. However, I did not yet have the self-belief to sacrifice certainty and security of a conventional career. I did not have the advantage of studying at Art School, so the risk seemed just too great.
After working in advertising for a few years, I moved to London in 1984 to engage with the wonderful cultural opportunities the city has to offer. I continued my career in advertising until the death of my grandmother, who had raised me by herself since my parents’ divorce when I was eight years old. In some ways, out of the tragic loss of my grandmother came the freedom to follow my true path as an artist by abandoning a career my heart was never in.
It never is an easy path. The first step to becoming an active artist is to show your work to as wide an audience as possible. That meant for me entering many art competitions, exhibiting my works in group shows, restaurants, bars, rented galleries and later in art fairs and salons. Recognition gradually came my way, firstly by winning local awards then by progressing on to more internationally recognised awards. This led to an expansion of my international profile with reviews of my exhibitions, articles in the press, publication of my paintings in international art books. Finally, I was sought out as an artist by galleries in London and Antwerp which led me to where I am today.
CAS: What is your process like, from initial idea to the creation of the piece? Do you usually develop the idea for a project before you find the "canvas", or vice versa?
Ultimately, I am inspired by human interaction. The initial spark that ignites my creative fire has many diverse sources. It can be a scene from a play, contemporary or classical dance, artworks ranging across the entire spectrum from the ancient to the contemporary, a moment from everyday life, or an old photograph. It is the energy generated by human bodies in proximity with each other that interests me above all else. I call this a relational configuration.
After I have discovered a particular relational configuration, I then engage in a lengthy process of research and development. I refine and crystallise the essence of my initial idea by a lengthy process of pencil sketches until I arrive at the final image. A musician once pointed out to me that this is how Beethoven worked with the development of his musical themes, so this would mean that I am in good company! This sometimes requires an austere Zen-like mental discipline, where I can get myself out of the way so my art can create itself. Although laborious, it is the only way I have found so far to achieve the authenticity I seek in my paintings.
Once the final image has manifested itself, I reproduce it on canvas with charcoal. I work directly with palette knife, applying oil paint texturally, sensitively and with a precise degree of tonal gradation to express the emotional nuances of the individual figures that comprise the groups.
Sometimes I know the colours for each of the figures when I start, but much of the time this is intuitive. Just as in life, each individual figure has their own story to tell.
CAS: What do you love most about your creative process?
That it always surprises. My creative process is like a process of self-discovery which results in connecting and communicating more deeply with other people - many of whom I will never meet. I love hearing about how the final pieces touch people’s emotions. When I finish a work, I let go of it and it becomes a gift for anyone who can connect with it in their own way. In a way, my creative process is a gradual letting go of something that had consumed me. Then, I can allow it to become a gift that enriches myself as well as other people.
Refuge
CAS: What role does art and the artist play in the broader social conversation today?
It depends on the type of artist you are; I can only speak for myself. For me, we live in an increasingly desensitised world. This has already gone so far, much of what we see and hear is actually intentionally insensitive and even cruel. We see this all the time from social media all the way up to leading politicians. In these times, I feel that as an artist I have a responsibility to address these issues and try to restore some balance. In a small way, it is a mission to help heal the unprecedented wounds inflicted by contemporary society.
That is why my current exhibition is called Embodied encounters. The viewer is invited into a relationship with the painting that is as important as those depicted in the work. The aim of this exhibition is to gently ‘shock’ the viewer back into conscious embodied living, rather than the externalised existence contemporary society has to offer. What I mean by this is that there is so much pressure to look a certain way, to own particular possessions and to desire something that is always and intentionally out of reach – like Tantalus. In some ways, we live in a tantalising age at the service of late capitalism. I would like to bring people back to themselves, to the experience of their own bodies which house their souls. It is here within us that meaning is made, not in something that will always remain outside of you.
CAS: Name a few of your favourite artists and influences.
Oh, I have been influenced by so many other artists, probably in ways that I am not even aware! At present, Kokoschka, Schiele, Matisse, Soutine, Rouault and Veronese come to mind. Contemporary dance and stained-glass windows from Gothic cathedrals have also inspired me as glimpses into more profound depths and possibilities of human spirit and expression.
CAS: What is the best advice you received as an artist?
A long time ago, my first agent told me: ‘Just stick to one style.’ I certainly wasn’t too happy when he suggested this! However, like all the best advice, we might not like it at first; the wisdom it contains is often revealed much later.
Over the years, this advice has helped me to focus creativity and discover my own unique vision as expressed in my current work.
CAS: When did you discover your voice as an artist?
I don’t feel there was one simple moment when I ‘discovered my voice.’ I have to discover and rediscover my artistic voice in every painting. There is no point in having a voice if it is not saying anything relevant that connects with other people.
My first explorations in artistic expression began with monumental cerulean blue figures in an abstract landscape suggesting futuristic dystopian urban landscapes. The figures where abstract and stylised, and represented the beginning of my exploration of the frontier between abstraction and figuration to find new representations of the human form. Expressionism influenced my early works profoundly, and its accent can still be heard in my artistic voice.
The next phase of my work involved total abstraction. My aim was to maintain an expressive dimension in my use of colour. I produced a series inspired by the shimmering effects of light on the sea. This taught me about the subtle use of tone to represent shifting patterns of energy. I can see now how I transposed these effects to the figures in my current work, where the tonal gradations express the rippling experience of physical and emotional sensuality.
The third phase of my work represents the emergence of my true voice as an artist, ushered in by a dramatic return to figuration. I produced a series of works representing couples in dynamic interaction. These were the prototypes of the figures as seen in my current work, although they were more elongated.
My interest expanded to encompass a wider scope of interaction, inspired by viewing works by Veronese in Le Louvres in Paris. ‘No man is an island,’ as the poet John Donne wrote. Likewise, I discovered a way of representing the whole network of relationships that exist around each individual person, whether they are present physically, emotionally or historically. This is where my voice speaks from, and I never forget the viewers who represent the final figure in my groups, participating in this conversation about human relationships. My art seeks to welcome the viewer into an embodied encounter, into the world of real relating.
This has taught me that freedom of speech, even as an artist, does not necessarily mean that people will listen. Finding your voice is no use if it does not speak to other people.
CAS: What advice would you give to emerging artists trying to find their own?
Learn everything you possibly can about your craft, but always follow your heart: that is always the place where authentic expression originates.
Scale of Love
