Defining Samantha Stella‘s artistic work is complex because the extraordinary variety of languages and codes she integrates in her artworks forbid it. Her performances embrace visual art, ballet, literature and music which blossom into one unique vision tending to the exploration of the fine line between opposites. Life-death, good-evil, past-present, eternity-transcience.

 

 

Her work reveals worlds of contrasting influences between classicism, post punk, industrial environments, romanticism, counter culture, sacred icons, dark decadentism and shamanic journeys which frequently manifest through the body.

The body becomes the performance itself, where geometry is built through movement, but also thanks to the presence of external elements which may be more or less static. A balance between structural and body performances, photos, and videos, witnessing collaborations with writers, poets, designers, visual artists, musicians, composers and film makers.

Samantha Stella’s research begins in 2005 when she founds Corpicrudi, a visual artist duo with Sergio Frazzingaro. Their projects are staged in contemporary art galleries, museums, historical places, churches, prisons and castles. A few years later she collaborates with choreographer Matteo Levaggi debuting in some of the most important cities of the world.

 

 

In 2015 she works on fashion performances even further with the overwhelming solo piece Symphony in Red, curated by art critic Francesca Alfano Miglietti in Antonio Marras’ space NonostanteMarras in Milan.  The following year she completes Hell23, which culminates into the series of video projects with the musician Nero Kane, presented at the Italian Cultural Institute of LA.

 

Her solo exhibition ‘God Loves You’ at Bergamo’s Traffic Gallery has only just recently ended, showcasing female rock vs. Christian iconography objects that recall a melancholy loneliness. A collision between past and present and part of a bigger project of the experimental feature film ‘Love in A Dying World’ filmed whilst travelling through the desert of California.

 

 

 

 

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WHY
why and how did you end up in your career path?
Because I was asked to (laughs). I was coming from ballet and artistic gymnastics. Meanwhile, my boyfriend of the time Sergio Frazzingaro, was moving his first steps as a DJ when some acquaintance of his asked him to make an opening performance during an event. I was working on the body because it was the most natural thing for me, it was my language. After that event many followed, and we also started experimenting with the use of photos and videos. We became Corpicrudi, a creature we grew together, with performances, photos, videos and that’s also how the first exhibitions in art galleries happened.
During an important art exhibition at the LipanjePuntin art gallery in Trieste hosting great artists such as Anton Corbijn – and which now doesn’t exist anymore – we casually met the curator. In the meantime journalists were beginning to know us and other important collaborations followed. We immediately collaborated with artists from different backgrounds. Alessandro de Benedetti, current Creative Director at Mila Schön, was designing his own collection, and we made an exhibition together which opened up doors to fashion world.
We then met choreographer Matteo Levaggi, resident in one of the most important ballet companies, Balletto Teatro di Torino. I found myself in the world of ballet but from the other side; thinking at the set from a creative and choreographic perspective.
We kicked off a ballet trilogy: ‘Primo Toccare’. The debut was presented at the Biennale de la Danse de Lyon. The second act in New York and the third in Bozen. In the meantime it was being presented in theatres in Italy, Belgrade and France, allowing me to merge all my passions together through different applications such as the settings, colours and costumes. During ‘Primo Toccare’ I had complete control of the art direction, and it lasted many years.
I then collaborated as assistant to the creative direction at Lavanderia a Vapore di Collegno – an ex psychiatric ward – to create a ballet season, inviting foreign haute level companies.
It’s as though all the pieces of the puzzle were somehow matching.
After that I came back on the scenes with a nude breast performance at the Elfo Puccini Theatre, and in Los Angeles at a museum during the LA Fashion Week whilst working on one of Death in Vegas members’ side project. During that occasion I invited two bands, and that’s when the collaboration with the world of music strengthened, using the artists themselves as protagonists who then became part of film Sexxx by Davide Ferrario. During the presentation of the movie, I met Francesca Alfano Miglietti, who curates the artistic direction at Nonostante Marras and she invited me to perform there.
Now my photo exhibition “God Loves You” is on show at Traffic Gallery in Bergamo and she wrote the text. There is also an installation of the video Hell23 in collaboration with Nero Kane. The exhibition is linked to the new project Love In A Dying World, always in collaboration with musician Nero Kane, which includes a feature film in episodes of the Californian landscape, with the music of his new album recorded in LA, and that I’m now editing.

WHO
how would you describe yourself in a few words?
Authentic; who truly believes in what she feels and has frequently paid the price for it. I’m very attracted by everything that comes out spontaneously from within. Determined, and i think art is poetry.

WHAT
what is your source of inspiration?
I’ve never had one unique source of inspiration. It’s a series of interactions; life is in continuous mutation and in the last years it has taken a direction. In ballet, music, fashion .. many things. My father is a blues drummer, my mother paints and engraves. I’ve always been lucky enough to use and work with my passions every time.

WHERE
where do you go to when you need a break?
I don’t have a place. In the last years I tend to increasingly prefer silence and nature. I feel good in enchanted spots… with no human trace, in mountain forests, in the ancient town, in villages.

WHEN
when and what will your next steps be?
Finished with the exhibition at Traffic gallery, I’m proceeding with the self-editing of the feature film Love in A Dying World.

**WILDCARD:
the matter you prefer the most?
Marble; I love its elegance, rigour and apparent coldness yet its possibility of being shaped into wonderful works of art bequeathed in the centuries and nearing us to the concept of eternity.