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

VM: I used to read comics when I was a teenager and I had decided to become a cartoonist. At the same time, my father took me every week to the Triennale di Milano that was the first place where I came into contact with contemporary art. Through school and friends I got to know more and more works and artists at the end of high school I decided to enrol in the academy and become an artist.

AT: When did it become serious?

VM: When I enrolled in the academy and started going into the art world.

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

VM: There are so many people to thank, my family, my teachers and my friends these people are close to me in my journey on a daily basis. Without them, I would never have become what I am today.

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

VM: Surely it all started from the design, it was always my comfort zone and from there I was driven to experiment.  I start from a design sheet in which I choose materials and subjects and then I let myself be carried away as if it were a true story.  I’m at a time in my life when I think I have so much more to experiment, I’m trying to contaminate myself as much as possible.  I try to make work that is tangible reasoning.

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

VM: I wish this was a moment to take a breath.

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

VM: I don’t have any.

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

VM: At the beginning I am full and happy, working calms me down but closing a job is always painful, especially when it takes a slow pace.  I almost never want to finish my work, it makes me feel empty to finish a job, it would make me feel worse not to close it.  I’m obsessed with the end result, which is why I struggle to handle the end there is always a reasonable difference between what I imagined and the end result.

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

VM: There are two moments: I get to the point I had foreseen in the project and mentally I can’t think about it anymore, I can’t imagine beyond what I’ve already done, I feel that the work can’t be otherwise.

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

VM: At the moment I am letting myself be carried away by the imagination of other historical and contemporary artists that I contaminate with various facts of my life, I do this to challenge myself, understand and appreciate their work.  Many of the things I watch and influence come from digital subcultures including some sci-fi illustrations, imaginary cottagegore or architectural models, scientific illustrations, medieval iconographies, cakes, glossy graphics, archaeological finds and abandoned buildings.

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

VM: There’s a lot of them.  Edward Kienholz and Nancy Reddin Kienholz are special to me.

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

VM: It’s very important to me.  I managed to get a lot of opportunities through digital channels.

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

VM: I don’t think I’ve been in there long enough to make a judgment.

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?

VM: Not being able to plan your life sometimes weighs on me, you live in uncertainty, it’s difficult, it’s a marathon you have to have the constancy to resist.  The best part is when you realize what you have created and for a short moment you become a spectator of your work that tells you something through contact with others.  Another beautiful moment is the idea of where you are in this magical place where anything is possible.

AT: What do you do besides art?

VM: For now I study, I grow my plants in the studio and I read comics.

AT: What are your goals and expectations for the future?

VM: Try to be a good person, stay motivated in my job, be able to experiment as much as possible and achieve the ambitious goals I set myself.

Viola Morini was born in Milan in 1997, the city where she lives and works.
She studied painting at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts.

Her research mainly deals with the relationship with the everyday live and the subconscious, investigating this relationship with the systems that put the work in crisis.

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