SPOTLIGHT:JOLANDA SPAGNO

Hailing from Bari, Italy, Jolando Spagno is a multi-award-winning artist whose work combines both optical illusion and art.

In much of her work, the use of an optical olf lens refracts and bends light through to the viewer’s retina, creating the illusion of a painting that moves with its audience. The angles from which the viewer sees from a fixed point are multiplied simultaneously, creating a kind of surrealist experience that gives a sense of illusion, a spectre of the original image which is want to appear and disappear as it chooses.

Despite the use of these distortive add-ons, there is no denying Spagno’s talent for drawing. A delicate use of graphite and a soft focus is typical of her aesthetic, whether the subject be a portrait or otherwise. The use of a monochromatic palette is also characteristic of Spagno; the lack of colour increases the sense of tension between subject and viewer that has been established by the distortive lens through which they see the image. Reminiscent of images such as Man Ray’s ‘Marquis Casati’, the eerie stillness of her figures are given movement through the manipulation of the viewer’s eye (in Man Ray’s case, a double exposure).

In cases where the refractive screen is not used, Spagno heightens the drama of her work by increasing the contrast between light and darks; dense, black layers of graphite from which the forms emerge, and textures that are almost filmic in quality.

Spagno’s minimal, yet confident style is highly unique and of a quality befitting any kind of interior. Prices start at £1200. Our partnership with Own Art will also allow you to take home the work on the days and spread the cost of purchase over ten months at 0%APR.