Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Francesca Virginia Coppola. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Francesca Virginia, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?

My journey as an artist has started at a very young age, when I worked through collage and ready-made, although I didn’t know anything about their historical context. The use of these media deprioritizes the importance of technique as an artistic skill, indicating that, at the time, I was already looking for a conduit to express conceptual insights, as opposed to technicality as a goal to achieve. Then, the most valuable thing I gained from my formal education at the Academy of Fine Arts in Italy was a strong conceptual background through the study of art history, an aspect I believe is important in anyone’s practice. This foundation served as the backbone of my growth, strengthening my own language and voice. While majoring in abstract painting, I soon experimented with many different media, such as installation, video, performance among others. The medium is not the main focus in my work; the concepts can take the form of a variety of outputs, underlining the immateriality of the ideas behind them. The choice of the medium comes to the surface embedded in the idea I choose to give materiality to. An important factor in my learning process has involved the contribution of diverse disciplines beyond visual art to my practice, resulting in works that are informed by my studies in canine cognitive ethology and zooanthropology. Regarding obstacles, I would say that the most challenging part of this process was the lack of support and the sense of ‘loneliness’ that can derive from the absence of a shared system. Luckily, facing these difficulties gave me the opportunity to develop resilience and confidence. An extra commitment and courage to believe in expressing that voice and sharing it with others.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I am a multidisciplinary artist who lives and works between Rome, Italy, and Los Angeles, CA. In my art, I explore the interplay between being, the passage of time, and reality. Formerly working with found objects from my daily life, currently my artworks incorporate organic elements from hikes in the forest and from my explorations of various environments. The act of collecting serves as a way to capture fragments of time and experiences. While the objects in my earlier works are mundane remnants of my own existence, the wild-foraged elements possess a universal quality embracing my individual narratives and experiences of place and time. This study of reality has led me to focus on nature as a primal level of existence, in an attempt to deconstruct the stratum we build around our perception. My background as a canine behavior consultant fostered this approach and deepened my interest in non-human perspectives and non-verbal communication. Nature as the most basic reality is explored through different bodies of work: the assemblages usually feature a natural element next to its pigment. Both are shown unaltered, yet the pigment involves my intervention, which consists of extracting it from the element by hand in my studio and using it to create marks and primordial forms. My tree and soil rubbings are the result of a performative process that takes place directly in and from the soil and the tree trunks. The hanging sculptures embody various concepts about the idea of my existence (in space, in nature) as the sole instrument of creation. From here, I utilize my hair, the leaves, the powders, the pigments that I extract from the elements I find on the ground and that I gather with my hands. Very common to my practice is to work in relation to the location. When preparing for an exhibition, if possible I like to explore the surroundings of the gallery or museum and work in connection with that environment. Notions of time always affect my work. This is true also in the making of the artwork itself: often interacting with the most ephemeral materials like wood powder pigment, hair, seeds… the process is long and demanding, requiring significant time and meditative patience.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

The way I build my art reflects an attempt at removing layers and superstructures around our perception of reality, thereby distilling it to its most essential and primal form. Over the years, this concept has been refined to the point where it’s no longer about the artwork itself, but about the encounter I have with existence, with time, with the external. I’d like to convey the idea that even if I strip away everything—constructs, intellectual or visual hooks, artistic tools, store-bought and man-made materials —my art will still exist as a trace of my thinking.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

As Louise Bourgeois said, ‘art is sanity’. On top of other ways to experience reality, humans have also art. It is a human possibility, a human behavior that we possess to deal with the world. Our ancestors, at some point, developed the ability for symbolic thinking, with some individuals producing symbols in the form of art. I don’t know what were the specific benefits of this trait, but selection didn’t work against it. For me, it’s like a technology some people use to process the world.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.francescavirginiacoppola.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/francesca.virginia.coppola

Image Credits

Francesca Virginia Coppola with her outdoor time-based project ‘’Time and Place’’. Photo courtesy of Francesca Virginia Coppola

‘’From Brand Park, Soil Rubbings’’, 2024. Photos by Saun Santipreecha

‘’Lunaria Annua’’, suspended sculpture, 2023. Photo courtesy of Francesca Virginia Coppola

‘’From Lake Ørnso’’, Installation view at Silkeborg Bad, Denmark, as part of the exhibition Amazing Nature (2023). Photo by Lars Bay

‘’Pinus Pinea’’, assemblage, 2018. Photo courtesy of Francesca Virginia Coppola

‘’Today is a lie’’, mixed media (trash, plastic bottles). Photo courtesy of Francesca Virginia Coppola