La Morra Artist – Tina Ciravegna Giacone

La Morra Artist

Tina Ciravegna Giacone

There are many talented artists in the Piedmont region. As part of Turin Italy Guide’s Arts section, we like to introduce local artists to our readers as a way to help discover the rich talent in the Piedmont region and to help support local artists.

Tina Ciravegna Giacone is an artist born in the picturesque village of La Morra in the Langhe. She currently lives and works in Turin. However, you can still find her exhibiting in La Morra on many occasions.

view of La Morra village with Langhe landscape

La Morra – compliments of La Morra Turismo

Tina Ciravegna Giacone’s art exhibit in La Morra

Let’s find out more about La Morra artist Tina Ciravegna Giacone and her artwork. Tina in her own words…

When did you become an artist?

I cannot find a starting point for becoming an artist. I always loved art and since I was a school girl, I used to spend a few hours a day drawing. I had a classical education and I always went on drawing, being self-taught until I had the opportunity of attending Drawing and Engraving Courses; first, at the Saint Martin’s School of Art in London, then at the Accademia Albertina in Torino. I never considered myself an artist. I just enjoyed doing what I liked and good if other people liked my work too.

If you could go back in time, in what period of time would you have liked to live as an artist?

Each historical and artistic period has its own fascination and is worth living in. I especially love Egyptian and Greek art and the Italian Renaissance. Considering more recent times, I would probably choose the period between the late 19^th and early 20^th century because of its great artistic revolution and evolution .

How would you characterize your artistic style?

I don’t know how to characterize my artistic style. My works are of three different kinds: Large drawings having a person as a subject (always a real subject in front of me), acquaforte (etchings), which include the landscapes of my native Langhe as the most frequent subject and abstract and colourful mixed media on hand made papers that I call “ Nonsenses“.

Each of these three kinds of art work are so different one from the other that they might appear to have been created by three different persons. Each belongs to a different mood. All I can say is that, in my etchings, I have developed my own style that makes them recognizable as my own at first glance. They are not meant to reproduce a particular place but rather the atmosphere of this beautiful Langhe countryside…especially in the early morning light when most details disappear and you can only see the profiles of the rolling hills. They usually give an impression of calm and quiet and order. That does not really belong to me. I’m just searching for them through the etching process.

My Nonsenses, instead, combining shapes and colours, are always light and bright…there’s nothing serious or meaningful about them. They were simply inspired by a reaction to difficult or sad moments in my life.

Which artists have influenced you?

Admiring the works of great artists, I always tried to learn something but I can’t say I’ve been influenced by one or the other. Giorgio Morandi is perhaps the etcher I admire most. My own teacher of etching knew him and told me a lot about his working method. Gustav Klimt and

Paul Klee are among my other favourite artists.

How would you describe your artwork?

I don’t know how to describe my artwork. I’ve always done what I liked and felt like doing, though never enough because of lack of time, work, family and so on. In some periods of my life it has been a great psychological help, a sort of art therapy. Not having attended proper art studies when I was young, over the years it has helped me to still feel young, as one who has still such a lot to try, learn and achieve.

What advice can you give aspiring artists?

The only possible advice is to follow their own personality, trying to express their own feelings without following the fashion of the moment. Never to give up and, most important, to work for themselves, not for the public…keeping in mind that earning a living as an artist can be quite difficult.