The artist
Paola Semilia was born in Palermo in 1982.
Since the young age, she shows a strong attitude towards art techniques (oils, mixed techniques, acrylics, resins, etc), revealing also a great passion for engraving.
Her most favorite technique is material painting. In her works she tries to create a thickness with the paints and the materials used, in such a way that triggers a different perception of the painting in the observers, making them want almost to touch them to fully appreciate the characteristics.
The academic career began with the enrollment in the degree course in “Restoration”, held by “Abadir Academy of Fine Arts in 2001”. Once graduated she continued with the specialization in Painting, obtained in 2007 with 110/110, publishing a thesis on Dan Flavin.
She exhibited in 2005 at the “Cantieri Culturali alla Zisa”, Palermo, in an exhibition entitled “Mass Distraction”, “The danger in art”, curated by an important art critic, Ida Parlavecchio, holder of the chair of painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in San Martino delle Scale, Palermo.
The artist's technique
Paola Semilia, in her works, uses a variety of different materials, all related to the industrial field and construction sites: plaster dust, steel, metal sheets, resin, acrylic paints, and so on.
The choice of these materials is not accidental but has its roots in the artist's history. Since she was a child, she followed her father, a well-known builder in Palermo, in all the construction sites. She began to paint right there, letting herself be inspired by everything that surrounded her at the time and that permeated the lives of her family members.
These materials are used crudely, they are spread with spatulas, toothbrushes, with hands or feet, with whatever the artist has available at the moment. Brushes are used, but rarely.
The image created is direct, without guidelines or preparation prior to the application of colors, since the artist paints her works following more what her feelings tell her to do, what comes from within. The works, in fact, are the fruit of dreams. They represent invented cities, some under water, some in non-existent landscapes. There is ample presence of fake elements, which can be configured in cranes that take the elevator, in buildings formed by modules that go up and down, and so on.
Each element represented in the artist's works has analogies with the phenomenon of life: ups and downs, dark periods and bright periods, good feelings and bad feelings, our feelings, our inner self. And above all, there are many elements that take up the concept of life after death, of rebirth.
Fluorescent paints
The artist started using fluorescent paints recently, roughly since 2019.
They are mainly used to represent a glimmer of light, to represent nature in all its components: the sun, the light, the water and, above all, the breath.
It is a ray of hope that nature emits and that aims to resettle within the cities, with its cranes, its buildings, its smog and especially its industrialization.
It is nature that breathes, that tries to regain space in an increasingly gray world. In fact, all of Paola Semilia's works are alive, they breathe, they are in constant movement.
They are dynamics works.
Mass Distraction
The exhibition, held from June 24th to July 10th, 2005, dealt with the theme of security, danger and emergency in all its facets. The title originated from a slip of the tongue made by the then President of the United States of America, George W. Bush, during one of his speeches in which he underlined the necessity of an attack in Iraq because of the presence, on the territory, of weapons of “Mass Destruction”.
The works therefore represented a means through which to reflect on society, on the constraints, dangers and limits to our freedom as people on planet earth.
Artwork: Bernardo Provenzano
The period in which the exhibition took place was a very hot period as far as the search for one of the most dangerous and wanted fugitives in the world was concerned…Bernardo Provenzano. There was so much talk about him that his figure had become almost “fashionable”, almost as if we were talking about a famous person, an actor. For this reason, a neon installation was also presented, depicting Bernardo Provenzano himself, as if to exalt his figure, his character in a somewhat kitschy way, emphasizing its meaning.
Moreover, always in that period, in the atrium of San Martino delle Scale, Palermo, there was the shooting of a miniseries just about Bernardo Provenzano, directed by Marco Risi.
Artwork: little girl with darkned eyes
The work in question is highly symbolic and evokes a very precise historical period, the years between the late '70s and early '80s of last century, in which the malicious tried to kidnap children in front of schools offering them these candies, Selz Soda. This malicious action also gave rise to the saying “never take candy from strangers”.
The artwork has also another meaning that recalls all the television broadcasts where the eyes of these children were obscured.
The danger, therefore, is as if it resided in the eyes of the child.
Paola Semilia, in 2009, exhibits her works in Milan, at the “Triskeles Gallery” and exhibits again in 2014 at “La Rocca Gallery” in Palermo, gaining in both cases wide success of public and critics.
Art exhibition: Sign and Color. Comparing generations
Art exhibition held during 2014 in Palermo, at “Galleria la Rocca”.
The style and personality of Paola Semilia are different and opposed to the art of Bruno Caruso.
Her art is pure abstract art with an effect, initially, disorienting.
Her canvases are large and almost white, as a result of an accurate study of light in all its forms and expressions.
In her works we can see a strong reference to the artistic minimalism of the American Dan Flavin, a great source of inspiration for the artist, especially when the lights are turned off in the room (remembering Dan Flavin and his “Icons”, installations with neon lamps).
Art exhibition: Out of the shadows
In 2014, she also exhibited at the “Albergo delle Povere”, Palermo, in an exhibition of contemporary art entitled “Out of the Shadows” curated by Anna Maria Ruta, who encapsulates her thoughts on the exhibition in these few, simple, lines:
“Shadow can be a safe shelter against the aggression of the world. It can be a hiding place from the assaults of nature or a comfortable shelter in an aching need for solitude. Many artists prefer to create secluded in the shadows and rarely show themselves in public. Others in the shadows remain without their will.
Bringing them out into the light is the aim of this Art exhibition, in which there are young people who are now coming to the fore, older people who had not many opportunities to gain public attention, well-known masters who rarely exhibit, and ladies who dabble in art.
Different in sign and techniques, they are united here by our desire to propose or re-propose them for public viewing.”
Together with Paola Semilia have exhibited: Renata Bonacci, Gai Candido, Maria Vica Costarelli, Nicolò D’Alessandro, Grazia D’Arpa, Franco Gulino, Kali Jones, Giovanni Leto, Antonietta Mazzamuto, Arianna Oddo, Franco Panella, Giusva Pecoraino, Ida Saitta, Nicoletta Signorelli e Rossella Sorrentino.
Other art exhibitions
- “Artisti Siciliani“, from 1st to 30th October 2016, Palaxxo Petyx, Palermo
- “Ego“, from 9th to 23rd September 2021, Palazzo Ducale, Genova
- “Art Operation“, from 30th September to 14th October, Palazzo Ducale, Genova
- Planned: “Gift of Art – 2nd Milan Edition” from 9th to 14 December 2021, Milano
