Antonietta Torsiello, Newham’s Rising Artist

Unassuming, shy, thoughtful and talented are words that come to mind when we think of Antonietta Torsiello. Unaccustomed to talking about her achievements, work and ambitions, this modest Artist from Newham (East London) has a lot to shout about. She has a wealth of experience and many artistic qualifications under her belt, an impressive portfolio of work, and has represented at numerous exhibitions since 2010. Recently, she has had a private exhibition of her work displayed at KPMG’s headquarters in Canary Wharf, London - evidently this 24 year-old is gradually making her mark on the London contemporary art scene.

Antonietta has dreams to start her own business by specialising in selling framed art and interior furnishings that have been customised with her own prints. Community development is also one of her other passions, and she hopes to inspire a generation of young people to value the arts, as well as actively communicate with one another about issues they feel strongly about.

Fresh after recently learning that she will be represented by Kamba Gallery in Mayfair London, Yaaya caught up with Antonietta in Newham.

And so the conversation begins …

Yaaya:

Antoinetta! At long last we have finally met! Thank you very much for agreeing to be interviewed. We understand you have been very busy of late. What have you been up to?

Antonietta T:

Yes I have. I’ve been trying to get my work into exhibitions, and I’m currently exhibiting at KPMG’s headquarters in Canary Wharf. In addition, I’m now being represented by a gallery in Mayfair. It’s a gallery that sells contemporary art and also African artifacts.

Yaaya:

What is the name of the gallery?

Antonietta T:

The gallery is called Kamba. They’ve been really supportive of my work because I did get to a point recently where I asked myself: “Where can I go with this?” I met one of the representatives in Victoria (South West London), and I showed her my work, and she said that it was really interesting because my work illustrates how Africa meets the West. She said that my works evoke different experiences merged into one, so we just went from there, and I’ve kept in contact with them quite a lot. I haven’t sold anything yet, but I’ve received positive feedback. I’m also working with the Prince’s Trust at the moment, and enrolling on their business course because I want to start a business in printing textiles.

Yaaya:

So you’ve been very busy!

Antonietta T:

(Laughs). Yeah I have.

Yaaya:

What motivated you to be interviewed by Yaaya?

Antonietta T:

When I went on the blog it seemed really interesting, especially the inspirational person you had interviewed. I can’t remember the lady’s name, but it really inspired me, and I thought “I want to be like her!” (laughs).

Yaaya:

Do you remember her name?

Antonietta T:

No. She’s an academic. She’s quite a mature woman.

Yaaya:

Cecile Wright?

Antonietta T:

Yes that’s her name! She’s amazing! If I can inspire someone with my art, I thought doing this interview would be a good way to do that, even though I’m not good with interviews or talking about myself. I thought doing the interview would be a good way to overcome this fear, and show people what I’m about.

Yaaya:

Diving straight in, on your website you describe yourself as a visual artist and textiles designer. Can you tell our readers what this actually means?

Antonietta T:

OK. Well the thing with me, in terms of being an artist, is that I’ve tried so many different types of art, so it’s difficult for me to try and label my craft.So I thought visual art covers a lot, as I’ve literally done everything from Sculpture, to Photography, to Fine Art. Everything you can think of I’ve done it, as I’ve completed a variety of courses: Art and Design where you do all different types of things to Fashion and Textiles, which is the construction of clothing. I thought visual art covers a lot of things, and Textile Design is what I studied at university where I specialised in printmaking on textiles. This was where I wanted to go next in my career, so I added textiles into the description of my craft.

Yaaya:

What products or pieces do you design?

Antonietta T:

At the moment I’m designing tea towels and framed art. I’m selling smaller pieces of my framed art at a pop up shop in Stratford Westfield called Established. They sell artwork by creative people in Newham. I also sell some cards there. What I really want to do is interior furnishing like cushions and curtains. When people see my work they always say “that will look nice on a cushion” or “that will look nice on fabric.” Eventually, I would also like to make furniture, but lets not get too ahead of ourselves (laughs).

Yaaya:

We can see that you are very passionate about your craft, as seen through the various qualifications you have in design, and the impressive number of exhibitions you’ve been part of. What has drawn you to this career?

Antonietta T:

When I was in secondary school I was so obsessed with art. You literally couldn’t get a pencil out of my hand! At first, I wanted to be a fashion designer. That was the career path I chose, and that is why I studied Fashion at college. Through studying the course, I realised that I didn’t like making clothes. I could do it very well, but I didn’t enjoy it. I rather liked the design and visual aspect of clothes. I didn’t like sitting on a sewing machine, so I decided to do an Art and Design course at Waltham Forest College, which was a really good course. It was a two year course crammed into one - year intensive course. After that I just tried all different types of art. When I went to university I found that printmaking was what I loved, especially screen printing so I stuck to that.

Yaaya:

We understand that your main inspiration is drawn from historical textile patterns, architecture, African culture and the 1960s. Why do these themes inspire you?

Antonietta T:

I can’t really pinpoint it. Once I see a pattern or colour it brings emotions out of me, and I feel like I have to go with it. I can’t say why it is specifically that they inspires me, but as soon as I see something that touches me, I go with it. I like to create work inspired by other things. I will have an idea in my head, and look at how I can combine it with things I see around me. I do this by researching, and figuring out ways to combine things. My head works in a weird way like that (Laughs).

Yaaya:

How do you reflect these themes in your work?

Antonietta T:

A lot of my recent work has been focused on trying to combine my water colour illustrations, the images of London I created last year and African textiles and culture. I researched different African tribes, and I found a tribe that uses a lot of flower decorations to adorn themselves. I found it really interesting because it looks like they are camouflaged. I really enjoyed looking at them. I really need to go to Africa. I know we are going off subject but I want to go. That is where I would love to go next. What was the question again? (laughs)

Yaaya:

The question was: how do you reflect these themes in your work?

Antonietta T:

I just think about two concepts separately. For example, if I was going to make an image to do with London or England, Africa and African textiles, and I want to combine them, I would do the art work separately and then think how I can adapt it, so that the images gel well together.

Yaaya:

Let’s talk about your ‘Afriwest’ design. What made you want to create a piece that merged African and western fashion culture?

Antonietta T:

When I was on a fashion imaging course I found myself being pushed to think about other art work like fashion photography and fashion marketing. However I didn’t really want to go down that route. I thought how can I add the fashion element and make it interesting for myself? ‘Afriwest’ is about fashion, but its also about culture. I looked at how Western designers have started to use African fabrics over the past couple of years in their work. I found this interesting, but also at the same time I wanted to explore where they got these ideas from. A lot of people seem disconnected from the African influences on Western fashion. They see such clothes on catwalk shows in London or New York, but they don’t really think about where the inspiration for these clothes come from. They will only say “ah that’s nice” or “I would wear that because it’s pretty”, but I wanted to go a little deeper and look at the inspiration behind it.

Yaaya:

Would you agree that the merging of western culture with so called “ethnic” cultures is a trend or a fad?

Antonietta T:

I think it is a trend, but there are dangers about it because there has to be a recognition of the heritage behind it. It’s important that the heritage is recognised.

Yaaya:

So you don’t think Western designers are publicly recognising the roots of their African inspired garments?

Antonietta T:

No

Yaaya:

Why do you think this is?

Antonietta T:

It’s obvious that their patterns are African print, but many act like they are reinventing it, and I don’t really like that.

Look out for Part 2 of this three-part post on 15th November, where Yaaya discusses with Antonietta the inspiration behind her work, women in the arts and the challenges of being an artist.

Leave your comments below to let us know what you have found inspiring about Antonietta. Invite others to the conversation by sharing this post!

Image Source | These images do not belong to Yaaya. Images courtesy of Antonietta Torsiello.