About me

What brings an engineer to jump out of her comfort zone made of formulas and technical knowledge?

What brings a woman, who is a mother and a wife, to complicate her life more and more by diving into a completely new field?

Unhappiness. Unsatisfaction. The sensation of a broken heart.

I used to spend my time working, playing with my children, cooking dishes and tidying up my house day after day, after day. Nevertheless, in my busy daily routine, I felt lonely. No one told me I was suffering from depression, but maybe I was.

And I blamed myself too, because I had no real reasons to feel like that.

You can feel alone even if you are surrounded by thousands of people. There is no music, no noise of phone ringing, no laughter able to give you relief when you experiment a lack of connection to reality. The fight was inside my head.

To fix that enormous hole in my heart I even tried to increase my social activities, but it did not work. Elisa being social. Would you believe it?

The same Elisa that, as a child, used to hide herself behind a car, or a wall, when she heard voices of children walking or playing hide-and-seek in front of her house.
The strange girl. The school genius. The smart engineer. The problem solver.

I do remember clearly the precise moment when I said ‘Now it’s time to do something FOR ME ONLY’.

A friend of mine living in another city came to visit me and brought with her a canvas, some oil paints and brushes. She wanted to show me what she was learning in a live painting course, and she proposed I give a try. It was a copy of Monet’s landscape.
Obviously, I had no technique, and my attempt of reproducing what she was doing was a complete failure.

The toxic smell of turpentine soon convinced me that it was impossible to manage my artistic passion at home, also considering that it took too long to arrange and start a session of painting and I did not have so much time in the afternoon.

Yes, again my rational part was overcoming AGAIN the struggling part of myself that was trying to set herself free.

And yes, I am a number one when it is about TAKING THE CONTROL (even in the wrong direction).

It took me three more years to embrace a dream. Three more years to realize that I could learn how to draw and paint even without a formal, academic education in Art, and even after I used to think about myself as an unqualified, everlasting beginner.

I soon decided that I wanted to portray people. I think we all have a hidden dimension, covered by layers and layers of dust, regrets, secrets, and fears. I can wipe them off, replacing them with coats of colours until the DOWN DEEP arises.

I have always been shy, that is true, but my high sensitivity allows me to dig deep inside people’s hearts by a couple of questions.

Straight to the point, no frills. It all starts from here in my creative process.

I can feel what you feel, once we establish a connection.

Don’t call it a superpower. Maybe it is just a consequence of my everlasting looking into the inside of human beings.

Art showed me the way. My way to rebirth. And I am born in every single painting, in every charcoal sketch, in every sculpture.

I don’t even remember what loneliness tastes like. Colors, images and ideas occupy all the available room inside my head.

I am in love with my dirty hands, with my old clothes showing spots of color I will never be able to wash away. I get excited choosing my reference pictures, discussing a pose, mixing paint, and finally seeing that a person living in my head becomes real, does exist and has an autonomous life.

And here I am, on the basis of my direct experience, guiding women to discover themselves and to be seen authentically, beyond stereotypes and labels, and helping them to reveal and strengthen their identity.

Through my figurative paintings, set halfway between realism and expressivity, you can finally make peace with your past, enjoy the present and face the future with joy.

Much painted, colored love, Elisa

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