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Primitive, 2019, watercolours, pencils, carbon paper, brush pen and ink on watercolour paper, 36 x 36 cm​

Primitive is a work of love, about love and coming from love. Two contemporary Italian queer artists, a musician and a painter, work together to empower each others by sharing their artistic talent and research in an exceptional and heart felt collaboration about love, its meaning and its aesthetic forms. 

The bright and intricate painting, moving from abstract to figurative in the same brushstroke, marinated over a few weeks in intensive dialogues, sketching, visual research and listening. The electronic warm atmosphere of the original and seductive album “fish love” by Aryanne Maudit had an influence on the geometric and primitive style of the composition. 

The work bridges queer culture, fine art and indie rock music landing on a wave of passionate guitar playing and playful delicate summer singing. The positive feelings coming from both the music and the visual artwork are a transformation of the dark content of the lyrics, the attempt to evolve from a fish type of love to a more generous form of giving. The provocative theme challenges our behaviour and makes us question if we are using others as an instrument for our own personal gratification or if we see them as separate beings and truly contribute to their happiness. 

The work in progress has been been discussed in two occasions with Arianna, who commissioned the album cover. She liked a graphic use of colour in the main subjects over a more traditionally painted watercolour background, letting a warm yellow and a deep blue shine bright, framing the two dances: the dance of the fishes and the one of the humans. The final image includes the use of miniature brushes, watercolours on top of water-soluble museum aquarelle pencils, carbon paper and ink on handmade watercolour paper (The Arches, 185 gsm).

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‘ Yoga and Avocado ʼ - 2019, acrylic paint and gouache on paper, 21X30 cm

Yoga and Avocado are the result of the elaboration of a new pedagogical method used to teach fine arts. Serena’s daily practice, as a painter and musician, creates a special, wise, free and critical space in which one can feel, contemplate and reflect deeply. This dimension comes to life in opposition to the busy environments shaped by other compulsory social functions and roles. By exploring important topics and shaping new meanings, ideas and solutions, Serena's work brings to life new knowledge and invites people to live a healthy, rich, fulfilling and meaningful life. 

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Archetypal Experience, relational film, 10′35′’, 2018

The relational and experimental movie features new knowledge about oil paint, klezmer music, relational art, contemporary psychology, critical pedagogy, feminist art theory and arts based research. 

Looking at the concepts of collective unconscious and archetypes, the artworks demonstrates that it is possible to overcome neurosis integrating the unconscious with the conscious (a process called 'individuation').

This happens through the creative process, passing from a state of mind to another. This step is visible at first in the three paintings, where the Eurydice myth is revisited in a feminist key and the art making becomes a way to transform biographies re-writing them as emancipatory narratives. Eurydice is not saved by Orpheus but she saves herself becoming a musician and leaving the yellow cage in which she was trapped.

 The other process that allows the integration of the unconscious into the conscious is the sound production. The soundtrack of the film is the recording of an improvisation between the artist, who is also a klezmer clarinettist, and a contemporary jazz clarinettist. During the musical improvisation based on an original composition written by Lucy Tasker, there is a constant dialogue between two brains and bodies in sync that are creating music in a state of flow, producing new knowledge and new selves.

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'Eurydice' - 2018, oil paint on canvas, triptych, 14X14cm

The collaboration with the ground-breaking designers who created Monocabin has been the opportunity for me to visually explore the orientalising dimension of the Rhodian Art and the one of the music that I have been playing for the last three years. Precolumbian art, Aegean Art and the history of Rhodes meet in this piece with my research of Eastern European music on the clarinet. They are revisited in a multicultural feminist contemporary context that reflects the cultural climate of London, the city in which the artwork has been painted. This painting is site specific, it reflects the colour palette used to build the wonderful minimal space that Monocabin offers and it is also a combination of dreams and fears that are silently present under the skin while we are sunbathing under the always burning sun of Rhodes.

This journey is about a Greek woman, Eurydice. She was born in a tiny yellow house, 2500 years Before Christ. For many years she has been experiencing abdominal pain, giving birth to a hundred children. One day, Eurydice hears something she never heard before. 

She feels so deeply attracted to this sound that she decides to leave her house, and faces the horizon for the first time. Sitting on a dune in the middle of the desert, a blue goddess is playing a buzuki with no hands. She has got spirited eyes. In her pupils Eurydice can see the mirror of her own soul. It’s a white snake. The louder is the music, the lighter Eurydice feels. She closes her eyes for a moment feeling the heat of the sun on her whole body. When she opens her eyes the blue goddess is gone. She looks at her feet and finds her buzuki laying on the burning sand. 

Eurydice picks up the instrument and her fingers start to change colour. They are red, then white, grey and after a few seconds they turn blue. She became the blue Goddess herself. Able to play the hypnotic music, Eurydice understands what it means to be alive. 

Music opened up an infinite space inside and outside of herself. It is a light place of heat and wind, of colours and sand. In this place there is no pain, no children, no walls and no floors. Eurydice is free. She can now follow her own ecstatic holy sound, becoming pure light and powerful energy. 

Her sound can now be heard from miles away, even from some Greek women who are living in tiny yellow houses.

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‘Balkan Jam and Dance session’, blood, flesh, wood, hair, metal, bones, teeth, memory, knowledge, bodies, performance, 2017

A celebration of my artwork in style with music and dance. Violinist & singer Gundula lead a jam session together with members of Tatcho Drom and the City University Balkan Ensemble. The dancing group Loli Grasnya lead dances for all, and through in a couple of performances as well. Visitors played, sung, danced, drunk and watched my personal exhibition 'GRABBING THAT BULL BY THE HORNS' in-between.

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‘Practicing’, clarinet on flesh, 2017, 167cm

I practice, no matter what.

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' ‘If I put it in my sketchbook it won’t die’  2010-2017, mixed media on sketchbook paper, various dimensions

If I put it in my sketchbook it won't die. I hope it will communicate something meaningful to you.

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‘ Tracing affection ‘ 2017, glass paint on plexiglass, 21 × 29 cm

Antonia, Marco and Maria with their special 5 objects.

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‘ People always look better in the sun ‘ 2017, sheep skull and polaroid print, 28X31 cm

I never think about death. I am not scared of it nor of losing who I love.

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' The hierarchy of ideas ' 2017, mixed media on paper, 200x200cm

The hierarchy of ideas is a game or toy in which you have to fit separate pieces together, or a problem or question that you have to answer by using your skill or knowledge.

This jigsaw puzzle causes someone to feel confused and slightly worried because they cannot understand something, or because they have to think hard about something in order to understand it.

Can you hear the answer?                                     Can you hear the question?

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' Demiurga ' 2017, watercolour on paper, 42.0 X 29.7cm

In the Platonic, Neopythagorean, Middle Platonic, and Neoplatonic schools of philosophy, the demiurge is an artisan-like figure responsible for the fashioning and maintenance of the physical universe. In Gnosticism and other theological systems the Demiurge is a heavenly being, subordinate to the Supreme Being, that is considered to be the controller of the material world and antagonistic to all that is purely spiritual.

'Demiurga', is also the title of my first collection of poems. It refers to the female force that organises, shapes and brings to life matter. It's the force that receives a soul into my artworks.

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' Boundaries ' 2017, print, 42.0 X 29.7cm

We all need to know what's inside and what's outside us. Choose what's inside, nurture it and use it to dialogue with the outside. Be aware of the homeostasis.

The homeostasis is the tendency towards a relatively stable equilibrium between interdependent elements, especially as maintained by physiological processes.

Homeostasis is the property of a system within the body of an organism in which a variable, such as the concentration of a substance in solution, is actively regulated to remain very nearly constant. If you don't carefully choose and nurture what's inside, what's outside is going to inhabit the free space he finds in you.

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' Mother Nature ' 2017, print or mixed media on paper, 42.0 X 29.7cm

I have been highly inspired by the works done by the global artistic movement “Nasty Women”. The movement was born on 15th Jan 2017 in USA with over 30 sister-shows worldwide and $181,000 has already been raised for women's rights and social services. I participated to the Nasty Women Cambridge show exhibiting 'Mother Nature' in April 2017. The original artwork is now on the walls of the premises of one of the women's charities (Cambridge Rape Crisis, Women's Aid and Corona House). Some of the ideas that are visible in this piece come from Mirone ('Discobolo Lancellotti', 455 BC), David Shrigley ('Time to reflect', 2015), Martha Rosler ('Semiotics of the Kitchen',1975) and F84 collective ('Modus Operandi' 2011).

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' Grabbing that bull by the horns ' 2017, oil on mirror and canvas, 42.0 X 29.7cm

Who is the bull ? In a Matrix alike dimension, the bull can choose between the perceived reality and the truth. The bull can therefore choose to be ruled by fear or curiosity. If you were the bull, what would you choose?

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Detail from ' Klezmer series ' 2015, mixed media on paper, 42.0 X 29.7cm

Inspired by the unique precious possibility of understanding musical performance as a research technique particularly in relation to the music of other cultures, I decided to learn to play Klezmer music on clarinet. Documenting the learning process of music performance in relation to the music of other cultures is not easy and this documentation is not always accessible. This is one of the reasons why I decided to visually map this process, creating an instantly accessible resource able to make some knowledge visible avoiding possible language barriers.

In this period of time I described the feeling of having heavy hands not able to follow the velocity of my mind, the feeling of missing information about my instrument,  the physical pain of my mouth and right thumb. Drawing daily after practicing with my clarinet was ordering my consciousness, keeping up my self-esteem and providing immediate positive feedback. It has been a useful way to document the complexity of this experience. Feeling confident in making images and hoping to progress soon in music as I was in the visual arts, I constantly shifted from a frustrating experience to an enjoyable one. The act of drawing was giving justice to the act of playing, considering the second one as important as the first one but only at an earlier stage of practice and understanding.

“It is how people respond to stress that determines whether they will profit from misfortune or be miserable.” (Csikszentmihalyi, 'Flow' 1992, p.7)

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' Klezmer hunt ' 2015, mixed media on paper, 42.0 X 29.7cm

Inspired by the unique precious possibility of understanding musical performance as a research technique particularly in relation to the music of other cultures, I decided to learn to play Klezmer music on clarinet. Documenting the learning process of music performance in relation to the music of other cultures is not easy and this documentation is not always accessible. This is one of the reasons why I decided to visually map this process, creating an instantly accessible resource able to make some knowledge visible avoiding possible language barriers.

In this period of time I described the feeling of having heavy hands not able to follow the velocity of my mind, the feeling of missing information about my instrument,  the physical pain of my mouth and right thumb. Drawing daily after practicing with my clarinet was ordering my consciousness, keeping up my self-esteem and providing immediate positive feedback. It has been a useful way to document the complexity of this experience. Feeling confident in making images and hoping to progress soon in music as I was in the visual arts, I constantly shifted from a frustrating experience to an enjoyable one. The act of drawing was giving justice to the act of playing, considering the second one as important as the first one but only at an earlier stage of practice and understanding.

“It is how people respond to stress that determines whether they will profit from misfortune or be miserable.” (Csikszentmihalyi, 'Flow' 1992, p.7)

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' Conversation ' 2015, Oil on mirror, 125X35cm

I used many screenshots of Skype calls to create small oil paintings. I consequently made bigger paintings underlining the weird typical perspective of the webcam and the exaggeration of the excitement or frustration that is perceived during these virtual interactions. The focus of the research moved then on the sound: writing fake Skype scripts I give birth to conversations that are crafted to sound like ordinary Skype calls. The sound has then been recorded, edited and reproduced behind the painting made on the mirror that became a 'speaking painting'. The sound has then been removed to let the work dig into the unconscious resonating at a different frequency.