Roberta Feoli De Lucia, Italian printmaker, professor, artist and, for more than ten years, printshop manager of Scuola Internazionale di Grafica Venezia. Member of “People of Print” community, active supporter of respectful and sustainable printing, for years she has been organizing courses and conferences on the topic.
How I describe myself:
“GrandPa Peppino was the founder of the oldest weekly of Sannio area, the “Messaggio d’Oggi”, and my mother took the reins becoming director and making me spend hours and hours of my childhood in the typography among the machinery where I observed Masters in smocks who knew how to transform ink in words.
The constant magic that accompanies their gestures, the smell of colored chemist and
literally seeing the images and phrases born made me fall in love. Adding to this the drawing lessons with grandmother Elvira, who every week gave me a challenge like: draw me a clothespin, draw me a donkey, draw me a pair of eyeglasses.
My study clearly embraced art and when arriving at the Academy of Fine Arts in Urbino, I saw the students with really dirty hands leaving the printshop, I experienced a flashback, remembering how much I loved seeing typographers at work when I was young. So after the three-year degree in painting I specialized in Art Graphics, being able to combine the stories of my land with the legends of Central America that have always captured me.
In the meantime I also studied as an actress until I graduated in theatre and have workshops with various directors, plus become a freelance journalist as family tradition and finally, getting dirty in the Stamperia help me to realized that this was the place where I could travel through time and return that enchanted child again.
Another important experience was the Erasmus in Granada in which I started assisting the engraving professors, followed by a degree and further specialization at Scuola Internazionale di Grafica Venezia. At this point I take the decision to stop there and make that Venetian printshop my staple and being officially recognized as a printmaker all over the world.
The constant comparison with artists in residence has given me the opportunity to establish friendships with incredible Masters who have immediately respected my role and my skills, to the point of receiving in 2018 the proposal from the The Boston Printmakers & Somerville’s Mixit Print Studio about a trip to the USA as a guest artist, fully funded and aimed at my further specialization. In this way I was able to attend the exclusive opening of the “International Fine Print Dealers Association”, meet in person and go to dinner with Susan Rostow, amazing printmaker and creator of the Akua Inks, that are the basis of my work and my lessons. I had the opportunity to compare myself and work in wonderful and super active places like Shepherd & Maudsleigh Studio. I was Guest Artist of the Massachusetts College Of Art And Design and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts | Tufts University.
I spent some time comparing myself with the guest artists of the Vermont Studio Centerand above all was presented to me the vibrant possibility to be the first Italian to follow and obtain a diploma in less toxic engraving techniques at the Zea Mays Printmaking, a magical printshop devoted to researching the most sustainable techniques to improve the impact of printmaking on the environment and on the life of the engraver. Basically I lived what seems like an incredible life opportunity for a young engraver.
In my artistic research the devils, the witches, the mourners and the fears from the stories I heard during my growth they defined themselves as sub-cultures transmuted by ancient religious impositions and tribal customs. Benevento, the place where I was born, is the “city of the Witches” par excellence.
I am fortunate to be a very active artist with collective exhibitions and catalogs that give meaning to my research path.
To find out more about me:
Freeda: https://fb.watch/ocn-o-LHWK/
Hello, print friend: https://soundcloud.com/helloprintfriend/episode-75-roberta-feoli
PRINTMAKERS IN PLACE: https://akua-printmaking-news-and-tips.constantcontactsites.com/printmakers
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/robertafeolidelucia
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_roberta_feoli_de_lucia_/