Wabisabi’s sinous women
Tell us a little about you Lorena, what do you do and where are you from? I am Lorena, aka Wabisabi (Japanese word that means “finding beauty in imperfect things”), I was born in Reggio Calabria but, when I was 18, I first moved to Rome, then to Madrid, Barcelona and at last Turin, where I currently live. My journey to be a full-time illustrator began 3 years ago, when I was only a self-taught artist with an increasing passion and curiosity. At that time I had the opportunity to attend a master in Creative Illustration at he BAU school in Barcellona. Less than a year ago I decided to entirely devote myself to illustration, leaving behind all the other jobs that I did. I started selling prints of my illustrations, collaborating with magazines, being published on pages dedicated to art and illustration, such as Brillo Magazine and Picame Magazine. I have recently collaborated with a new magazine that will be coming out in September with fashion illustrations and in October for the first time one of my illustrations will become the cover of a book for Edizioni SUR.
Could you identify all your artistic influences? There are many artists who have influenced me along my way. At the beginning Egon Schiele for body shapes, Picasso and Matisse for their use of color and Gauguin for composition. Over time there have been others, specific to the world of fashion illustration, such as René Gruau, Helen Dryden and George Barbier. And then there are the contemporary illustrators who inspire me every day: Isabelle Feliu, Agathe Singer, Kelly Beeman, David de las Heras, Manuele Fior, and Abbey Lossing.
What does drawing represent for you and, above all, what do you try to convey through your illustrations? Drawing for me represents a continuous search, a comfort, an escape valve, a safe haven. When I am happy, when something worries me, when I am angry, drawing helps me get through the emotions. Even though what I draw may have nothing to do with what I am feeling, just the act of planning a drawing, studying the composition, choosing colors, fills me up. Over time the themes of my illustrations have taken shape, and now there is an underlying message that I try to convey: to feel free with ourselves, to feel at home with our bodies, in our spaces, to be in alignment with what we believe in.
Tell us about the expressiveness enclosed in the women you represent: their movements, their gaze is not casual…. An important element in the way I see and represent bodies is undoubtedly dance. I have always danced since I was little: since I was 5 years old I never stopped until I was 18, when I left my hometown and started my Bachelor’s degree. It was my way of expressing myself, I lived my emotions by dancing, it was a fire that only fed itself. Since I stopped dancing, for years I went in search of that fire. I finally found it again in illustration, and, without wanting to, the dance returned, this time on paper, with brushes and colors. The other element that returns many times in my illustrations is the gaze, which is one of the ways through which I read people. The gaze is a tool, we can convey many things without saying a single word.
Often in your illustrations the color red takes the main stage…does it represent something in particular for you? It was the first color, followed by blue and yellow, that I began to use when I was still working in black and white. I was very afraid of making mistakes and I was convinced that I didn’t know how to use them, I didn’t know which colors to combine and what colors could be matched. Then, a little while studying theories of color, a little while observing the work of the old masters, I jumped in, and I started using primary colors. Red has remained in almost everything I do: probably my unconscious associates it with the great passion I feel for illustrations.
Contacts: @___wabisabi
