Mute Affirmation of Life

As the paradigmatic tortured artist, Amedeo Modigliani’s biography is now legendary. An alcoholic, drug addict and rampant womaniser, his early death by tuberculosis at 35 ended a turbulent life that feels strangely at odds with the elegance and serenity of his sculptural portraits and nudes. The enfant terrible of the Paris Modernists went largely unrecognised during his lifetime, and he staged only one exhibition, but his work now achieves eye-watering prices at auction.

All of this mythologising makes it difficult to unpick some important truths: among them, the central role his lovers played in shaping his work. Even with the catalogue of cruelties inflicted upon them, they continued to propel him forward creatively.

By 1917, Modigliani was in the darkest depths of addiction. Even if art historians have argued that it was a result of his worsening tuberculosis – a kind of self-medicated palliative care – his behaviour was no longer unpredictable but wilfully destructive. Enter a young, shy and beautiful art student from a strict Roman Catholic family, Jeanne Héburtene, who found herself seduced by Modigliani’s scabrous charm. Moving in together, Héburtene became the central subject of Modigliani’s late career, and the closest he ever came to a conventional relationship. Together they had a daughter, also named Jeanne, and during wartime escaped to Nice and Cagnes-sur-Mer, where their second child was conceived. A talented painter of modest, meditative portraits, she continued to work quietly as Modigliani descended into mania.
During the latter stages of Héburtene’s pregnancy, her disapproving family discovered the severity of Modigliani’s illness and denied her permission to marry him. Modigliani had lost all his friends, and took to roaming the streets of Paris every night, drunk and high. One night, the now estranged (and still pregnant) Héburtene was called to his apartment, where he died in her arms of tuberculosis. A day later, Héburtene threw herself out of a window at just 20 years old, killing both herself and her unborn child. The last of the talented women driven to despair after entering Modigliani’s tangled, toxic orbit – and given her young age, surely the most tragic.
Amedeo Modigliani is buried in Paris at Père-Lachais cemetery, close to Jim Morrison.

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Silvia is an Italian/Australian artist, born in Rimini, on the East Coast of Italy.

After a diploma in construction and construction drawings, she received a degree in Artistic Anthropology from the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna studying
Art History, Psychology, Drawings, Illustrations, Anatomy, Theatre, and, above all, she fell in love with Artistic Anthropology, thanks to the amazing teaching of the dearly beloved Mr. Roberto Daolio, one of the finest art curator in Italy in those years.

She studied Professional Make Up at the Accademia Nazionale del Cinema in Bologna and she extensively studied makeup across tribes, traditions, ethnicities, and contemporary anthropology.

Her artistic work is largely influenced by the art of Aubrey Beardsley, Francisco Goya, Lucien Freud, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, René Magritte, Klimt, Schiele, the Renaissance and the Baroque and Rococo landscapers, especially in Venice.

Silvia loves the photography of Robert Mapplethorpe, Edward Weston, and Erwin Olaf, and the performance of Matthew Barney, Pina Bausch, and the contemporary Italian company MOTUS.

In her illustrations, she works with pen, ink, watercolours and Pantone colours on paper. Mixed media can also include gold leaves at times.
In her paintings, she works with oil colours.

​The village of Santarcangelo Di Romagna, which is near to Rimini, is a town of painters and artists of all sorts. It is here, where Silvia formed her foundation for appreciating the beauty in simple things, and for finding poetry in the ordinary.

Why do we make art? Where does the inspiration come from? What are we making it for?
These are very important questions for both, the artist who wants to transmit 'something', and the buyer, who gets moved by 'something' in the artwork.
What it is? What's that something?

Silvia remembers when fish of many varieties, wrapped in old newspapers, having been freshly caught , were being passed hand to hand from the boats, to men and women on the docks which, early in the morning, were lining the harbour, on push bikes or just standing , embraced in the first light of the day, anticipating the arrival of the boats, with their escort of flocks of hungry seagulls.

​Fish are life. Fish are work. Fish are a blessing given from Mother Nature. Fish are simple yet beautiful in their simplicity.
Fish smell and are real like only fish can be.
Fish are part of our roots and heritage, a classic; They are a metaphor of life and a never-ending source of inspiration. ​
Fish do not discriminate; Fish know no borders; Fish only answer the call of Nature, they follow the currents and sometimes even go against it .
Fish works in groups, Fish dance, Fish sing, Fish are predators, and are prey.
Fish range from some of the smallest life on earth to the largest, and occupy waters from the North to South, East and West.
Fish have been feeding humanity from the Beginning and we should respect the Fish, Thank the Fish, Protect the Fish, learn how to live like the Fish.

Silvia is environmentally aware, she is not against fishing, unless its deemed as an unsustainable fishing practice, and is staunchly against the hunting of large mammals for any reason.
Only original works, made with love.

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