Interview: Nicole Viviani
Luca Curci talks with Nicole Viviani during the 17th Edition of VENICE INTERNATIONAL ART FAIR, at Palazzo Albrizzi-Capello.

She finds inspiration in the emotionality behind the human experience. She paints as a personal exploration of mental health, using her own experiences and those of her peers as a quiet, empathic manifesto. Her desire to understand and subvert the stigma around the emotional body has pushed her to pursue these themes consistently in her career.

Luca Curci – What is art for you?
Nicole Viviani – Art for me is a language, a way to communicate the essence of a feeling in its most complete form. I believe that art is the way our soul speaks, sometimes we as creators don’t fully understand the meaning but it carries with it a complexity and depth that can’t be fully expressed in words. It’s a way for me to channel energy, quite simply. A meditation that leaves evidence of its insight.

LC – What is the trigger that leads you to paint?
NV – Any emotion that feels too strong to contain within myself. It’s less of a trigger and more of an urge. I often compare it to crying, but not in a negative way. It’s like a reflex to life, I see and experience and, therefore, need to express.

LC – What issues do you intend to deal with in the future?
NV – I have always carried with me Intersectional Feminist (and, therefore, Environmental) themes in my work. There is so much humanity is learning through art, I want to contribute to that journey. I would like to work with bold themes on the human emotional experience, I believe that in our society, which still carries with it the relics of an oppressive patriarchal and industrialist structure, there is a need to abandon the values that cage us into a human experience that is less than who we are. We are emotional beings, we crave and require safety and community, on so many levels. I want to bring that with me and create work that emphasises the importance of vulnerability and community.

LC – Is there an unrealised or unrealisable project, even a crazy one, that you would like to work on?
NV – I’d like to create immersive sensory experiences, creating tactile and audiovisual triggers to create emotions. I would love to incorporate tech in some way into my work and find ways to make it more human. We tend to digitise the world forgetting that User Experience is, in fact, an aspect of the human experience. I’d like to work with that theme more. Using tech to elevate and exasperate the inherent human core that drives us to progress as a society. I find it funny that we strive for technological progress when we are at large still so emotionally immature. Not in a negative way, more like a toddler tries to speak words before knowing how to use the muscles in their mouth. I’d like to point a gentle finger at the progress we need to make, and say “Hey, there is a wound here. We need to see it and heal it to be capable of becoming our fullest selves, as a global society.”

LC – What are the three hashtags essential to define your poetics that you could not give up?
NV – Hashtags are algorithmic, so they change according to trends, I don’t necessarily see them as a reflection of my work as much as a way to engage new viewers with my content. If I were to choose three that applied to my work, they would be #healing #emotionalintelligence and #safespace. But as I said, hashtags are more of a tool than a branding element for me.

LC – Do you agree with our vision of art and what do you think about the theme of the exhibition?
NV – I like that you bring artists together to show their work, under the same roof. The themes tend to be broad for that reason I imagine, I understand it’s a challenge to encapsulate so many visions under the same theme. That being said, I didn’t feel particularly close to the theme of this exhibition, but the result was lovely and it was very gratifying to see so many different artistic perspectives.

LC – In which way the artwork presented in our exhibition is connected with the exhibition’s theme?
NV – “International Art Fair” speaks for itself I would say, you gathered people from around the globe. It was absolutely an interesting show in that regard. Cultural lenses coming together under one roof

LC – Did you enjoy cooperating with us?
NV – It was lovely, I did.

LC – What do you think about ITSLIQUID Platform?
BD – It’s definitely big, and vibrant! Feels like there are a lot of artists being featured at all times.