Luca Curci talks with Franca Dariol during FUTURE LANDSCAPES, third appointment of BORDERS Art Fair 2020, at Palazzo Albrizzi-Capello.

Franca Dariol was born in Treviso in 1970 and she received her high school diploma at the state Art School. She has been living in Meolo, in the province of Venice (Italy), since 2000, with her son. She resumed her artistic activity in all respects in 2012, following a break due to professional and family commitments. After experimenting with Baba Bedi’s psychic techniques for five years and organizing various exhibitions, the artist felt the need to integrate this new found knowledge into the figurative psychic portrait. In an atmosphere of research inspired by her art-therapy, chromotherapy and biotrans energetic background, Franca Dariol presently aims to use art as a means of inner healing and to raise the vibrations of the environment in which her canvases will be hung. In 2019 Franca Dariol pushed herself beyond the acquired techniques, deciding to “feul” her studio with the vibrations of the title she would give to her future canvases, covering her rooms from wall to wall with the texts: “PRESENT”, “FUTURE” and finishing with “PAST”. She created a triptych on these themes by painting the canvases one week apart, intuitively. While placing them closer together, she realized that a wave appeared in the lower section across all three in a harmonious manner, probably signifying the flow of life through time. Franca Dariol’s current artistic direction involves portraying people in all their wholeness, both in their psychic aspect, giving an evolutionary drive, and in their physical aspect, representing abstract concepts pictorially as well.

Luca Curci – What is art for you?

Franca Dariol – Very poetically, I can say that in my opinion art is the expression of the ‘divine’ that becomes matter, through the artist, a person of marked sensitivity who acts as a channel between the earth and the sky. A work of art can make you vibrate at very deep levels. Personally, I do not appreciate art when it is ‘gloomy’, it seems to me to throw heavy psychic emotions on the audience and the environment. Instead, I love art as a means of illuminating with positive emanations, in order to raise the vibrations of the environment, rather than lower them. We are already heavily bombarded with bad news from the media. We need ‘breathing space’ for our soul. Furthermore, I believe that art is one of the few spaces where the human being can move with full creative freedom. The more the artist acquires new inner freedom, the more this will reflect in his works, making them unique and extremely original, suggesting new ways and new atmospheres, inner and outer, bringing new beauty to the world.

What are you currently working on?

I have some areas in which I explore freely, to capture the interest of those who follow my artistic research. On one hand I am experimenting with various types of colors with the use of plaster castings on the canvases, recently with the theme: “charisma”; on the other hand I am cultivating my passion in youth for portraits, with a psychic modality research style, to capture the inner motions and inclinations of each personality.

What’s your background?

I really like this word, it looks like underground… I love the dream world, everything related to subtle bodies, parallel worlds, symbolism, spontaneous healing, chromotherapy, music, poetry, dance, art as a means of personal liberation and evolution. After finishing high school of Arts, I did not go on because I had a strong need for economic autonomy and I found it difficult to choose between some study opportunities I felt attracted to. At the same time, I continued to be interested in it and to study the themes dearest to me and to attend courses for personal growth, in particular the studies and philosophy of Baba Bedi.

What is the experience that has influenced your work the most?

Good question… there are many. The best thing to do is to always follow your own ‘flow’, a flow that I had to interrupt when I was very young, but which I promptly found and restored with the help of Bio-transenergetics.

What is the most challenging part about creating your artworks?

I have no difficulty in creating my works, but I do not always have all the material I feel I need within reach, from canvases, to colors, to other important material, nevertheless sometimes it is really challenging to have to choose which and how much time to devote to it. But when I’m in full creative flow it all happens by itself.

How is being an artist nowadays?

It is a privilege. You can look at the world from a broader perspective.

Which is the role the artist plays in the society? And contemporary art?

The artist recalls that we are free people and that each one has immense abilities that are often not recognized nor put at the disposal of society which would benefit from it. We must learn to recognize these attitudes/abilities and give them the space they undoubtedly deserve.

Which art themes do you pursue? What is your preferred subject, if there is any?

I am investing a lot of energy in psychic portraits, as a study of personality. The themes are many, often in line with the situations, including personal ones that I am experiencing.

Did your style change over the years? In which way?

My style hasn’t changed over the years, but there is a natural and spontaneous evolution in my way of using colors, materials and expressing myself.

In which way the artwork presented in our exhibition is connected with the festival’s theme?

“Future Landscapes” is linked with my triptych “Past, Present and Future”. We arrive at a future landscape after having crossed and lived, more or less pleasantly, a past, built and sown in the present. The future landscape lives within us, in our imagination, but tomorrow will be a new today and a new today again. Only the present moment is eternal.

We were attracted to your latest artistic production, has the artworks presented been created for the festival or as part of preexisting works?

In my artistic production the theme of time has often been developed and appreciated. I have some previous chalk works on the same themes as the triptych, the latter is my personal and important milestone achieved in 2019.