“I like jumping from one place to another. There are not boundaries for me. This might be applied both to my lifestyle and art practice.” After 25 years in Sicily, Christina Prudente decided to start a new chapter in her life and find a new place she could call home. She spent some time in San Francisco and then relocated to London, UK. London’s dynamic and blooming culture scene is probably what led Christina to arts. Everything began with a short drawing course Christina was attending while working as a lawyer.
Suddenly Christina quit her job and started attending Kingston University, where she first got her Bachelor and, then, Master’s degree in fine arts. However, for a long time her art work didn’t have any link. When she was creating something, Christina just tried to explore the possibilities of “creation” in a time’s vacuum without notion of past and/or future. People were telling her to focus on one technique and find her personal style, but she didn’t feel this way. Instead, Christina adopted the mindset of the Arte Povera, a contemporary art movement from Italy. Artists that refer to Arte Povera believe that the link is the artist themselves.
“I enjoy working with every type of media and different kinds of concepts. I appreciate the art of freedom, because my previous occupation didn’t give that freedom. The whole day I was sitting in the office, doing boring paper work and couldn’t express myself. Now my art work fully responds to who I am.”
In Christina’s opinion, the country, where an artist lives/lived/came from naturally influences his or her work. “Human experience is what inspires me. In my art work I like to reflect social issues that modern society is currently facing. I worked with such topics as war in Afghanistan and Iraq, society control, equality, human rights and so on. I think it was some kind of a transition from a lawyer in to the artist”.
Christina also draws her inspiration from other artists’ work. Michelangelo Pistoletto, Bill Viola and Gerhard Richter are some of her favorites. Currently she is working with selected poems of Edgar Allan Poe and trying to respond to them in her new art piece she is going to present at Kunstkraftwerk. In the upcoming exhibition, she will be using different media such as mirrors, photos, video or music. So we definitely have something to look forward to.
And what are Christina’s plans for the future after her residency at Pilotenkueche is finished? She is always on the move and she is not going to stop. Since she successfully exhibited in Tokyo last year, now Christina is trying to organize a new exhibition in Korea. We will see where wanderlust will bring her. Maybe it will be a birthday party at the North pole or an art residency in Namibia. Time will tell.
written by Kristina Nizamova
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See Christina’s work in the following Pilotenkueche International Art Program shows:
Elsewhere a Blue Line and the Absurdity of a Ghost on a Stone
Vernissage: Sat 18 May 2019, 7PM
Open: Sun 19 – Sun 2 June 2019, 10AM – 6PM (closed Mondays)
Location: Kunstkraftwerk, Saalfelder Str. 8, 04179 Leipzig
Wrestling with Impermanence
Vernissage: Fri 21 June 2019, 7PM
Open: Sat 22 – Wed 26 June 2019 1PM-5PM
Location: PILOTENKUECHE, 2nd Floor, Franz-Flemming-Str. 9, 04179 Leipzig, Germany
Performance: To be announced