About me
Giuliana Pugliese nasce a Valsinni un piccolo paesino della Basilicata, dopo aver conseguito la maturità artistica al Liceo Artistico di Matera si trasferisce a Torino dove conseguirà gli studi in discipline pittoriche presso l´Accademia Albertina delle Belle Arti , durante il periodo accademico ha approfondito lo studio dei sogni e della psicoanalisi sperimentando le tecniche surrealiste. A cavallo fra il 2005 ed il 2006 si dedica allo studio dei muralisti messicani ed alla storia del muralismo in Sardegna mettendo in pratica la tecnica murale nel suo territorio, la Basilicata. Nel 2006 le viene consegnato un premio per la realizzazzione di un Murales a San Giorgio Lucano avente per tema il ruolo delle donne nel brigantaggio, Nello stesso periodo realizza dei progetti di pittura murale con gli alunni dell´Istituto Manlio Capitolo nella città di Tursi , presentando un progetto avente per tema il Brigantaggio del mezzogiorno. Dal 2006 si trasferisce a Padova ed entra a far parte di un gruppo di artisti indipendenti e membro dell´associazione Paolo Capovilla, insieme agli Artisti Indipendenti parteciperá a diverse mostre e Workschop fino al 2010 anno in cui, si trasferisce a Berlino con l ´intento di sperimentare ed apprendere nuove tecniche pittoriche. Dopo una lunga fase figurative arrivata a Berlino, dove vive e lavora, inizia a sperimentare ed a dedicarsi sempre di piú all´arte astratta lasciandosi ispirare dalla tecnica a spatola di Gerard Richter.
Giuliana Pugliese was born in 1980 in Basilicata, a small region in southern Italy.
From 1994 to 1999, she studied art at the Liceo Artistico Statale in Matera (Italy).
In 2000, Giuliana moved to Turin and graduated in painting at the Albertina Academy of Fine Arts in 2005. During her academic period she devoted herself to the study of Surrealism and Psychoanalysis, creating paintings and travel journals based on dreams and experimenting with Automatic Drawing and Writing.
Giuliana Pugliese returned to her hometown in 2006, devoting herself to the research and study of post-unification Brigandage of Southern Italy, focussing on the role of women in brigandage.
In the spirit of these studies, she created many public Murales, one of which was awarded at an art competition in San Giorgio Lucano (Basilicata, Italy).
After moving to Padua in 2007, Giuliana began collaborating with a group of artist by the name Independent Artists, with whom she took part in several exhibitions supported by the Ministry of Cultural Heritage, Municipality of Padua and the Foundation Paolo Capovilla.
During her time in Padua, Giuliana also became interested in abstraction and a different use of colors after seeing the works of Emilio Vedova and started working with several abstract artists.
While still doing portraits, she was already developing a different technique using color as a material.
In 2010, Giuliana moved to Berlin, where she currently lives and works.
The Berlin experience is decisive for her work, as she started experimenting with colors, breaking away from the figurative and moving on to the abstract using the spatula technique.
An important factor for the change in Giulianas style was getting to know the writings on the fourth dimension and the works of Gerhard Richter.
Parallel to abstract painting, Giuliana also began to work with collages and videos on the subject of migration and immigrants.
When I was 14 years old, I left my parent's house to become an artist. Moving to Matera to visit the Liceo Artistico I was thrown from my childhood into a situation of loneliness. I spent every evening out in the streets, watching people, feeling the whole city was like a big canvas to explore, a blank spot that my imagination could turn into any country or landscape that I liked.
To capture situations and people that were important in my life I started to paint portraits, often using photographs to create my artwork on canvas, walls or sandcoated canvas. To this day I use figurative art to reproduce experiences that are connected to special moments or people I met.
The freedom I felt in Matera for the first time is a key aspect in my work to this day. It is founded in my conviction that home is not a specific country to me but an island within my soul.
I also felt that freedom when I moved to Berlin in 2009 and started to focus on abstract painting. After first experiments in Italy I intensively studied this technique using only spatulas or my fingers.
In abstract painting I enjoy letting my emotions take over and experimenting with color without having to show anything concrete.
!This becomes particularly clear in my painting "Gegenstunde". A poetry collection with the same title written by Austrian poet Karl Lubomirski gave me the idea of a moment that stands "against time" – outside the three dimensions defining the world we are living in.
!Recently I started to use abstraction also in portrait painting, for example in "I Musicisti di Neukölln" which is part of an unfinished set showing musicians during their performances in Neukölln where I felt emotions connected with a concrete moment.
As an artist freedom to me also means to be free in the subjects I choose and statements I voice through my work. I reflect political turmoil and global crises like the Arab Spring or the migrant situation by using collage techniques. The direct and striking effect of news pictures and advertising resonates a contrast: For tourists in Italy the sea and beaches are beautiful backdrops for leisure, but for refugees they mean the difference between survival and dying. The way how our society is handling this situation represents to me pure disinterest in the face of a humanitarian catastrophe. The region I come from has been shaped by exchange with other Mediterranean cultures, such as Greece or North Africa over centuries. Today immigration across the sea is seen by many as a threat only and no longer as an enrichment of one's own culture.