Media & events
Kirsty Whalley interviews Rossanne Pellegrino on her works for Layered & Unveiled (2007)
01/12/07
Through her photography, Australian artist Rossanne Pellegrino aims to transport her viewers into a dream world where images of reality are melded together and obscured by heightened colours.
In her art she explores human memory. “I wanted what was in my head to be on paper, fuzzy around the edges, bright colours, things changed,” she says.
Her passion for photography began when she taking a break from university in Australia and went travelling. “I was 20 and living in North London and my housemate at the time was really getting into photography. I was given a small 35mm camera and told to take it with me everyday and take photos of what is around me. I did, and I guess this also influenced my early work in recording people and everyday moments,” she says.
She became so enthused about photography that she incorporated it into her degree upon returning to University. Once she had graduated in 2005 she applied for a mentorship scheme from an arts academy in Southern Australia and collaborated with one of her tutors Greg Donovan to produce an exhibition.
“We wanted to produce a body of work that blurred the boundaries between painting and photography and employ the technique of photo transfers. The theme I wanted to explore was human memory and our ability to record moments and the nature in which this changes through the passing of time.”
It was at this point that Rossanne developed the techniques of producing her photographs that makes her art so unique. “I take photos and then manipulate them by painting them, then taking more photos of that image, melding images together and then applying chemicals to them and then press printing that image onto paper,” she explains.
In her first show in 2003, while she was still at university, Rossanne worked on documenting the community in Adelaide where she lived, capturing people in every day moments. She went on to stage more successful exhibitions in Adelaide getting valuable exposure for her work. She says: “I left Adelaide because I felt I was doing the same type of work same people coming to my shows so came to London because I thought it would be an opportunity,” she says.
However establishing herself as a photographer in London has been difficult. “I didn’t know where to start, it was really daunting,” she says. “There is so much going on here, if I’m not making art then I’m visiting art. It is so much more accessible here. On the negative side, London life is so busy that you have to make time to get into your art and also work for a living.”
Memory and culture are the themes that resonate most strongly in her first exhibition in London.
It is obvious from her photographs that a lot of her work is deeply personal. Family and culture are themes that reoccur in most of Rossanne’s pictures. She says that old photographs of her mother and father reoccur in her images. “Pictures of my mum, like the one in Sandy and the Queen, show her as a teenager or early twenty-year-old with the Royal Family. Images featuring my younger dad were melded with iconic religious imagery,” she says adding that her diverse background is a strong influence in her work. “My mum is Scottish and her parents are very British - roast dinners at theirs on a Sunday - whereas my dad’s parents are Italian and I associate all the religious icons with my dad’s mother.”
Rossanne says that through her work she is exploring or making light of the difficulty in explaining her identity that she had when she was growing up. “I was an Australian who was part Scottish and part Italian but everyone wanted to know which part I was more of and I couldn’t work out how to answer that because whatever answer I gave them was not to right one. Why wasn’t just saying I was Australian enough?”
Despite the personal element, Rossanne says that she does not want to impose a meaning onto people through her work. “I don’t really have a message that I am trying to convey through my work. I want people to be interested in the work I produce. I want to create thought-provoking work that allows people to make their own stories and characters behind the images. If people relate to my photography or just like the colours, or are intrigued by the techniques used, I don’t mind as long as they are engaged and interested.”
Layered and Unveiled exhibition
10 Grosvenor Street W1K 4QB
6-30 November 2007
www.weareallartists.co.uk
-Interview by Kirsty Whalley
In her art she explores human memory. “I wanted what was in my head to be on paper, fuzzy around the edges, bright colours, things changed,” she says.
Her passion for photography began when she taking a break from university in Australia and went travelling. “I was 20 and living in North London and my housemate at the time was really getting into photography. I was given a small 35mm camera and told to take it with me everyday and take photos of what is around me. I did, and I guess this also influenced my early work in recording people and everyday moments,” she says.
She became so enthused about photography that she incorporated it into her degree upon returning to University. Once she had graduated in 2005 she applied for a mentorship scheme from an arts academy in Southern Australia and collaborated with one of her tutors Greg Donovan to produce an exhibition.
“We wanted to produce a body of work that blurred the boundaries between painting and photography and employ the technique of photo transfers. The theme I wanted to explore was human memory and our ability to record moments and the nature in which this changes through the passing of time.”
It was at this point that Rossanne developed the techniques of producing her photographs that makes her art so unique. “I take photos and then manipulate them by painting them, then taking more photos of that image, melding images together and then applying chemicals to them and then press printing that image onto paper,” she explains.
In her first show in 2003, while she was still at university, Rossanne worked on documenting the community in Adelaide where she lived, capturing people in every day moments. She went on to stage more successful exhibitions in Adelaide getting valuable exposure for her work. She says: “I left Adelaide because I felt I was doing the same type of work same people coming to my shows so came to London because I thought it would be an opportunity,” she says.
However establishing herself as a photographer in London has been difficult. “I didn’t know where to start, it was really daunting,” she says. “There is so much going on here, if I’m not making art then I’m visiting art. It is so much more accessible here. On the negative side, London life is so busy that you have to make time to get into your art and also work for a living.”
Memory and culture are the themes that resonate most strongly in her first exhibition in London.
It is obvious from her photographs that a lot of her work is deeply personal. Family and culture are themes that reoccur in most of Rossanne’s pictures. She says that old photographs of her mother and father reoccur in her images. “Pictures of my mum, like the one in Sandy and the Queen, show her as a teenager or early twenty-year-old with the Royal Family. Images featuring my younger dad were melded with iconic religious imagery,” she says adding that her diverse background is a strong influence in her work. “My mum is Scottish and her parents are very British - roast dinners at theirs on a Sunday - whereas my dad’s parents are Italian and I associate all the religious icons with my dad’s mother.”
Rossanne says that through her work she is exploring or making light of the difficulty in explaining her identity that she had when she was growing up. “I was an Australian who was part Scottish and part Italian but everyone wanted to know which part I was more of and I couldn’t work out how to answer that because whatever answer I gave them was not to right one. Why wasn’t just saying I was Australian enough?”
Despite the personal element, Rossanne says that she does not want to impose a meaning onto people through her work. “I don’t really have a message that I am trying to convey through my work. I want people to be interested in the work I produce. I want to create thought-provoking work that allows people to make their own stories and characters behind the images. If people relate to my photography or just like the colours, or are intrigued by the techniques used, I don’t mind as long as they are engaged and interested.”
Layered and Unveiled exhibition
10 Grosvenor Street W1K 4QB
6-30 November 2007
www.weareallartists.co.uk
-Interview by Kirsty Whalley