Emanuela Crotti

Resin worker

©Manu Crotti

Assembling beauty

Emanuela works with resin combined with various materials
Her work is emotional and poetic, focusing on experiences and memories
She has a strong connection with nature and is deeply concerned about the environment

There is something stirring, painful even, in Emanuela Crotti’s works. They are beautiful and at the same time sometimes difficult to look at. This difficulty might be because of the complexity of her technique, because of the several layers and patterns which she somehow manages to put together, but most likely, they are hard to look at because they are full of life, and life is hard, beautiful, but hard. Emanuela Crotti’s journey in the art world begun with painting, exhibiting in Paris at 16 and winning prizes at 18. She followed different artistic currents – figurative, abstract, minimalism, zen – but its only with her latest works, where resins meet photography, graphics and material collages, that she feels she has actually found her style.

Interview

©Manu Crotti

©Manu Crotti

How would you describe your work?: With my work, I have crossed different artistic currents, experimenting with figurative painting, geometric abstractionism, Zen minimalism and finally material painting with the use of resin. It is an extraordinary material that truly allows me to assemble all kinds of things, and like resin in nature, it preserves organic elements in transparency forever.
What made you change your artistic path?: The idea came from a crisis period, as they often do. Aseptic art galleries no longer responded to my artistic feeling. I wanted something with a life, something that could be experienced and that would relate to its owner. I started with a table for my own house: I wanted it to be an emotional piece that could speak to my inner self.
Could you describe the process of your work?: The use of this material gives me the possibility to incorporate very different objects and techniques into my work, such as photography, painting, material collage, gilding, and so on. From a technical point of view, I am able to harmonise the elements inserted into the resin until they become a unicum which becomes the new creation.
What drives your work today? What is your source of inspiration?: My current path is akin to plastic modelling in which the resin shapes the objects (toys, pearls, pills, souvenirs, leaves, flowers, memories and sacred hearts) unifying them in the composition. The result, the mobile design, is transformed into a narrative code, almost a poetic diary, which tells of memories, colours and emotions to be shared with the viewer.

Emanuela Crotti is an expert artisan: she began her career in 1990 and she started teaching in 2019