Interview: Sofia Saladini
Luca Curci talks with Sofia Saladini during THE BODY LANGUAGE 2025 at Palazzo Albrizzi-Capello in Venice.

Her name is Sofia Saladini, and she is a young artist from Rome. Since childhood, her passion for art has led her to pursue an artistic path that has so far developed mainly in the academic sphere. There, she has had the opportunity to experiment with various artistic forms, helping her refine her technique and creativity while granting her the versatility that defines her artistic production. This journey became more intense during her last two years of high school when the art course she chose to integrate into her international diploma program allowed her to dedicate herself to creating numerous works of different kinds – including paintings, sculptures, and videos. During this period, she worked on her photography project Metamorphosis, which later became a pivotal element in her artistic path. This photographic series led her to 59Rivoli, a cultural center in Paris, where in November 2024, she had the pleasure of performing alongside a close friend in a dance performance that embodied the project’s message.

Luca Curci – What is art for you?
Sofia Salandini – This is a question that I love to engage with and which, to be completely honest, I still haven’t fully found an answer to. My grandma sometimes reminds me of the time when I was a child and, watching me draw a very colorful and pretty unrealistic tree, she pointed out that I should make it green because that’s how trees exist in nature. She proceeded to tell me that I responded by saying, certainly in more basic terms, that there was no point in drawing a green tree if it already existed because art should create something new rather than merely mirror reality. While my understanding of art has certainly evolved since then, exploring a variety of perspectives, this anecdote that my grandma loves to recount remains ingrained in my vision of art. I am captivated by the conception that art consists of bringing to life the imagination envisioned in our minds and felt by our hearts and that, as a result, it has an intrinsically expressive purpose (and power). Some may argue that this is a reductive vision of art that unjustly questions the validity of more veristic, representational art styles. However, in my case, even when I capture with my camera a given scene as it is, without alteration, I am making artistic choices aimed at bringing to life a feeling or an emotion that ultimately originates from my mind and heart.

LC – What’s your background? What is the experience that has influenced your work the most?
SS – I was born in Rome and have been living there my whole life, although recently my university studies have brought me to France. I come from quite an artistic family; my mom is a photographer and my great-uncle a versatile artist often engaged in sculpting and captivated by the history of art. From a very young age, my mother and grandmother have exposed me to art, mainly through books and museum visit,s and I think that this early, constant exposure to art has certainly contributed to engraining art into my way of life and informing my identity. So far, my artistic journey has developed primarily within a scholastic environment. Being omnipresent in the school curriculum all throughout middle school and high school, my schools’ art courses have given me the opportunity to experiment with various artistic forms, which have helped me cultivate my technique and creativity, granting me the versatility that I believe defines my artistic production. This journey intensified during my last two years of high school, where the art course I chose to integrate into my International Baccalaureate program led me to dedicate myself to the creation of numerous artworks of different kinds – including paintings, sculptures, and videos. It was during this period that I developed my photographic project Metamorphosis, which eventually became a deeply significant milestone in my artistic path. This photographic series took me to the cultural center 59Rivoli in Paris, where, in November 2024, I had the pleasure of performing alongside a dear friend in a dance performance that embodied the series’ message. I wouldn’t say that there is a single experience that has influenced my work the most, but among the various ones that there are I would have to mention my journey through the world of dance. My fascination with the body’s ability to become a tool of expression as well as the struggle I have experienced throughout my years of dance practice in conveying such expressivity, have inspired two of my major works – one of them being the photographic series I exhibited at the ITSLIQUID exhibitions of Venice and Rome. However, reflecting on the themes that permeate my artistic production, I would say that my greatest source of inspiration comes from the human experience, particularly in its facets of love, loss and identity.

LC – Which art themes do you pursue? What is your preferred subject, if there is any?
SS – While I often think of myself as a highly versatile artist, exploring a wide range of styles and themes, the body of work that I have produced over the course of two years for my International Baccalaureate has revealed to me which themes and concepts I am most attracted to. This body of work focuses on the exploration of the concepts of movement, memory and identity, and, while deeply rooted in personal experience, each work that I have developed seeks to be an accessible commentary on universal experiences such as the fragmentation of personal identity, personal transformations and our relationship with the past. For my next works I would like to elaborate on the themes I have explored so far, exploring them under a new light, by focusing on the notion of cultural identity. While so far my preferred subjects have been young women often portrayed singularly, for these future projects on cultural identity, I am considering the portrayal of a collective group brought together by cultural ties.

LC – How do you feel when you see your work completed?
SS – Leonardo da Vinci used to say that “Art is never finished, only abandoned”. This is a philosophy that resonates with me as I have often struggled to determine when I should consider a piece finished for good, and especially in the case of paintings, have often found myself going back to the canvas to add the ‘last’ detail. Of course, I have had some beautiful moments when I took the classic artists’ ‘step back’ from the easel to look at my final work, and smiled at its sight. However, I feel like there is often an expectation that an artist’s greatest satisfaction will arrive at the end of their process upon viewing their finished work. In my case, I have found that some of the greatest satisfactions do not come following the completion of a project but rather during the process of creating it. As a matter of fact, one of my most precious works is actually one that I have left unfinished for almost three years. Despite its incompleteness, it is one of the works that have given me the most satisfaction and happiness due to what it has taught me about the art process: to embrace and fall in love with the imperfections of your works’ imperfections.

LC – What is the most challenging part about creating your artwork?
SS – One of the most challenging parts about creating my artworks comes in the phase of project ideation, where I must determine which conceptual and technical choices to make in order to convey a certain message and emotion. However, perhaps the challenge that stands out to me the most is something that my art professor has pointed out to me, and that I now notice myself: ‘taking the leap’ with my works. This idea of ‘taking the leap’ refers to any big, decisive step that is needed to reach a given work’s vision, ranging from painting the central or most challenging element of a painting to altering and re-arranging the composition of a scene I wish to capture with my camera. Something that I think is interesting and almost fascinating about all these challenges is that they can be highly frustrating and sometimes even debilitating, in that they can halt the creative process, yet at the same time, overcoming them can provide moments of great satisfaction and personal growth.

LC – Do you agree with our vision of art and what do you think about the theme of the exhibition?
SS – I certainly believe in the vision that a key aspect of art is its ability to create connections, something which I believe the ITSLIQUID Group aims to promote through its extensive collaborations and initiatives. On this note, I am eager to see the connections that this exhibition will create, both between fellow artists, curators, and even more broadly, art enthusiasts and curious individuals. I am captivated by this exhibition’s theme, largely due to all the different ways in which it can be interpreted. Another reason for my enthusiasm is that, as reflected in my photographic series Metamorphosis, the theme of body language is one that is very close to my artistic production, particularly as it applies to the world of dance.

LC – Can you explain something about the artworks you have in our exhibition?
SS – The artworks in my exhibition are part of a photographic series entitled Metamorphosis. They reunite my fascination with Vadim Stein’s photographs of ‘sculptural bodies’ with the desire to depict dancers’ transformation throughout their artistic journey. My intention was to depict the transformation of an almost sculptural figure, representing a dancer in the early stages of their artistic journey, from a block of marble into an expressive figure. The presence of this sculptural figure, recalling the human body in its form, also intends to confer the work an element of biomorphism, an artistic current that deeply interests me and that I look forward to explore further in my future works. By limiting the movements and expressiveness of the wearer, the material enveloping the sculptural body is meant to convey the sense of restriction that characterizes a dancer at the beginning of their journey – when the ability to use the body as an expressive tool is still developing and therefore limited. This creates a parallel between a sculpture that has yet to be fully carved and a dancer who has not yet achieved a full level of expressivity and freedom of movement. As the metamorphosis unfolds, this figure undergoes a transformation, highlighted by the juxtaposition of the sculptural figure with a dancer in full freedom of movement and expression. The metamorphosis becomes evident in the contrast between the restrained figure and the dancer, who ultimately embodies complete freedom and fluidity of expression.

LC – What do you think about ITSLIQUID Platform?
SS – Something that strikes me about the ITSLIQUID Platform is its accessibility and inclusiveness. It attracts a wide variety of artists thanks to its international outlook and inclusion of such a wide range of artistic media, from video installations to paintings, performances and more. As a nascent artist that has been unexpectedly selected to take part in these two great exhibitions, I feel like there is truly a space for everyone, from mid-career artists to emerging ones and more (which is also why I would like to take the occasion to encourage every aspiring, emerging or young artist to apply for inclusion in one of their exhibitions!). Even in their themed exhibitions the ITSLIQUID group manages to maintain this openness and accessibility through broad and evocative themes like the “the body language” that, being interpretable in so many different ways, truly showcase the diverse ways in which art unfolds.

LC – What do you think about the organization of our event?
SS – I found it a smooth and enjoyable organization process, tailored towards meeting the individual artists’ needs through direct contact with the curators.