Artist Statement

My work focuses on the symbolic attachments intrinsic in nature and culture. Since 1990 I have worked with multimedia installations, films, and photographic reportage. Reflecting through a specific and observable non manipulated reality.  I try to identify what is hidden behind that reality and separate the layer of objective composition.  The intention is not to simulate vision or deconstruct reality, nor to change the nature of things but to focus and to reinterpret.  With lens, the camera or mirror capturing the immediacy of the subject, I focus on details and then extrapolate from expectations of that reality.

The photographic eye objectifies this projection and interprets its subject reflexively—as though the intimacy of a self-portrait was annulled. In fact, the reflexive journey is a central theme of my work.  The journey is a confrontation with the “others”, with the “double” (via mirror and photograph….) and a metaphor for how art bridges life.

For some times my interests have been concerned with the relationship between objects in space. From painting I have moved on to sculpture, photography and installations.  I try to identify what is hidden behind the obvious.  I like to use everyday materials such as metals, wood, glass, mirrors, as well as light materials such as paper and fabric.

The use of the photograph and video is very present in the latest work, because they capture the essence of reality and the possibility of nature, a reflection of space and time. In my photographs, I pay particular attention to place and geography that already primordially inhabits the world, whose naturalism binds it to the sense of humanity.  Awareness of this then leads to the conclusion that nothing can surpass the authenticity and beauty of nature.  The photographic eye permits the immediate synthesis from the idea to the construction of the thought.  This is therefore the beginning of the process that becomes actually work.  This coexistence underscores movement, as for example in my landscape work, in which each piece becomes a frame making up a sequence as in a movie.

Click here to view works from the artist’s past exhibitions at The Loft at Liz’s

Artist Biography

Born in Rome, lives and works in Los Angeles.

Visual artist, art director, filmmaker, and photographer, Luigia Martelloni grew up in Rome, where she studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti. She graduated magna cum laude.  Her master’s thesis was “Primitive Influences and Affinities: Primitivismo in the History of the Avant-Garde.”  Art history professor and art critic Lorenza Trucchi curated Ms. Martelloni’s first Italian solo exhibition in Rome at the “Galleria Al Ferro di Cavallo” in 1988.

New York was the city that held her first American solo exhibition in 1986, just after finished her studies at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma.

Upon completion of her master’s degree, Ms. Martelloni went to live in New York. She began an ambitious yearlong project in which she traveled around the United States and Central America to study the art and the culture of the Americas.  After this period, she began to exhibit her work in New York as well as Rome.  Her paintings, photographs, and installations were the result of her journey.  The themes of traveling, nature and symbols are essential aspects of her art.  Ms. Martelloni continues to exhibit in Europe and in the USA.

Luigia Martelloni also works in production design, concept work, and research for film, TV, and theater, having worked on Godfather III with Francis Ford Coppola and Dean Tavoularis.  Ms. Martelloni also worked with Italian film director Luigi Comencini.  While she was working in Cinecitta she got to watch Fellini and other Italian directors make movies.

She worked as well for operatic productions such as La Boheme at Venice’s famed La Fenice Theater and L’Ernani at Regio Theatre in Parma.

Luigia Martelloni moved to Los Angeles in 1993 where she continues to work as a visual artist, photographer, art educator and filmmaker.

As a filmmaker, Ms. Martelloni produced and directed documentaries such as “A Film on Life, A Life on Film” a story about young people who have survived cancer through the eyes of young man who did not, co-produced with Fisher Stevens, GreeneStreet Film and Roman Coppola.

She produced “This is Tap”, a journey into the history of tap dance using interviews with dancers like Gregory Hines, Jimmy Slide, Brenda Buffalino, and the Nicholas Brothers as well as many others.  She directed and produced a documentary called “Bocca della Verita` (Journey into Sex Slavery) a story into the life of East European and African women who are victims of human trafficking.  She also directed and produced a documentary called “Not Just A House” about the relationship between Habitat For Humanity and The Canyon Charter Elementary School in Santa Monica. Together this partnership built a home for a Florida family that was struggling to re-start their lives after Hurricane Wilma.

Recently her artwork was shown at the Shoshana Wayne Gallery in Santa Monica.  It was also shown at the 54^th Biennale di Venezia in Italy and simultaneously at the Italian Cultural Institute in Los Angeles.