AT: Where are you from and how/why did you start engaging with art?

MV: I’ve recently moved back to my hometown Roseto Degli Abruzzi which is a few kilometers from Pescara where I lived for several years. I started very young doing art in different ways from theatre to music. I came to the visual arts gradually without an academic education. I am self-taught.

AT: When did it become serious?

MV: For me it has always been a serious matter to be treated lightly.

AT: Are there any person who has been significant in your breakthrough as an artist?

MV: I do not think so. Not directly at least. Surely in all the relationships I had and that I constantly have sometimes turns on something interesting. I think I’m lucky, I know many artists, many good curators, figures from different cultural backgrounds who somehow feel close and with whom I have constant exchanges of thought. It is a form of wealth, the only one that really makes sense.

AT: What is your first approach to the work? How would you describe your practice?

MV: For years I had a rather nomadic practice, I ranged from one work to another without making myself too many problems. I think I had a period in which my works were affected too much by this sociability with other artists. My practice, although interesting, was becoming too chaotic, not sincere. For a while I have decided to focus my attention only on what really interests me, and therefore these works I am making now are so reduced to the essence. Anyway, I do not have a specific method or a special training. I adapt myself to the best practical solution for what I want to express at the moment. In the latter period I’m getting used to a certain studio routine. I try to be in the studio as much as possible. I really like it early in the morning or in the evening but not at night. I spend most of my time reflecting on the works I realize. I observe them tacking back my time.

AT: What do you aim to reach with your work?

MV: Probably silence. Mine, of my works and of those who stand in front of them.

AT: What are your favourite tools and materials for working?

MV: Best are always the best. Price for example is a good indicator. My fabrics could not return such deep and at the same time reflective surfaces if they did not have a professional structure behind them.

AT: What do you feel while you work? Do you usually think about the final outcome beforehand?

MV: I am not agree with the free interpretation of a work. When I realize something, it is because I want to say something and not else so I always think about the result. I have a great consideration of who is in front of one of my works. Our research born in a private aura to open up to the public sphere. We should always be aware of it.

AT: How do you understand that a work is finished?

MV: A work is essentially an idea that only later becomes real. I think the work ends when it becomes an idea for those in front of it.

AT: Where does the inspiration for the work come from?

MV: It is hard to answer. I think artists are a transfer between an inner and an outer world. I believe that my work is a partial and arbitrary interpretation of the present.

AT: Are there any artists who influenced your works? Why?

MV: There are many. And there are many figures of thought that influence my work. Old masters are for example a constant: Matisse, Turner, Rothko and others who have treated light and colour in an intense, visceral, surprisingly emotional way. In the latter period I am also studying architectural currents such as Brutalism which is intense and stimulating in its hard geometries.

AT: How important is the role of social media for you?

MV: Question should be asked in reverse. It is important to understand how important art is for social media, how seriously it is taken by them. Social media still fails to return an authentic experience and we artists adapt happily or sadly to these new distances.

AT: As an artist, what is your point of view about the contemporary art system?

MV: Too messy nowadays. It is time to start tidying up, to understand what is happening. Maybe this 2020 gave us time to reflect.

AT: What do you find to be the most challenging or daunting thing about pursuing art? What is the most rewarding part of working as an artist?

MV: I believe that in the end it counts only the power that the work expresses. This is the only authentic gratification possible.

AT: What do you do besides art?

MV: Oh, I really enjoy cooking and think I’m pretty good.

AT: What are your goals and expectations for the future

MV: I’m working in the studio for some upcoming projects and for the moment it’s okay. I also work with ULTRASTUDIO and my own curatorial project THE COURT… In short, there is a whole 2021 to rethink.

"The digital image is given to the observer in the form of a pictorial simulacrum: reality and gesture disappear to give tangibility to the dream. The alien is here with us and no longer needs a referent or one representation". (Davide Da Pieve)

Maurizio Vicerè (b. 1985) is an Italian visual artisti currently living and working in Pescara, Italy. He is Co-founder of ULTRASTUDIO and curator of THE COURT in Pescara.

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