When Celio Bordin visited Los Angeles for the first time in 2015, strange images began appearing in the clouds of cross-hatched ink on his mixed-media canvases. A painter and sculptor from Northern Italy who calls himself a “mountain man,” Celio set sail for America in search of change, creative inspiration, and the “American Dream.”
“With a suitcase mostly filled with a lifetime of experiences and a few savings, combined with what some may call courage, others foolishness, I left the Alpine woods of Italy for Los Angeles and the beaches of Southern California,” Celio says in an interview with VoyageLA. “All I knew was that I had something unique to offer, and it was time for me to make my move. Arriving in California as an immigrant artist in a country of immigrants was an indescribable experience.”
While culture shock took hold—“it was crazy and chaotic and definitely polarized in great extremes”—Celio ultimately fell in love with LA’s multiculturalism and expansive approach to art-making. His new stomping grounds provided plenty of creative inspiration outside the Renaissance Masters, whom he imitated growing up in Italy. “When I moved [to LA], I discovered that this land, with all its migratory flows of humanity and animals for thousands of years, has left a great, energetic legacy,” says Celio, describing himself as “sensitive to the energy of the environments” where he works. Celio enters a trance-like state to channel these subconscious energies while drawing, allowing collective memories and ephemeral characters to surface through dense webs of ink.
Living in LA, distinctly “American” images —a chief in full headdress, Native American faces, and ancient Spanish carraca—began surfacing in Celio’s work for the first time; most were utterly foreign to the Italian artist. These early LA works, embellished with shimmering gold and silver leaf, would become Celio's American History series. “These works were born here in this land—this American soil transmits a strong energy to me,” says Celio. “I discovered it by staying here and drawing here—what emerges from it is an immense number of figures of Native peoples, architecture, and symbolism of a bygone era up to a thousand years ago.”
In Today’s Q+Art Interview…
Celio Bordin discusses the powerful history of pre-colonial America, how LA influences his work's rich narrative and symbolism, and why he now considers himself part of the American story.
What are you trying to express in American History? The images seem to have a loose narrative; can you tell us the story?
Celio Bordin: It was a great surprise to me while drawing "Tree of the First Peoples," for example, when I stepped back from the work in progress and observed it. I saw with certainty the presence of a tree, and inside it were Native American faces with different somatic characteristics. I understood that I had to start bringing out the details for each individual subject. In that work, it was as if a family tree was written, divided into different tribes but connected and compact within a stable trunk and roots. So, I understood the message that these faces, images, and symbolisms were like looking at the DNA of this sacred land of nomads. Sacred keepers, sacred caretakers of this sacred land.
My paintings with these multiple Native American subjects emerged of their own accord to tell stories of those periods and generations of different tribal ethnic groups. They filtered onto the canvas through me, not by me. In those moments of working catharsis, I felt their presence strongly. I was unfamiliar with the origin or specifics of much of what I drew. I did not research American history before I came from Italy, [nor did I] research these people and their rich and also painful stories. But this Californian land, now unrecognizable compared to the times before colonization, has an immense, energetic power and a vibrant story it wants to tell. And with great respect and humility, I let myself go into this immersion and draw what I sense.
Your work seems to exist outside of time. Can you tell us about the concept of past, present, and future in these works? What are you saying about America's past, present, and future?
CB: Creating these works is a tribute to these civilizations and these people, who continue to tell and transmit their stories to contemporary spectators who observe and want to perceive and understand the messages contained in these artworks.
So, in a way, it channels the past into a modern work of art. But not in a figurative or representational way, as if it were a photograph or a figurative painting, but rather as a series of connections, details, and symbols within the works that require careful observation and consideration by modern observers to perceive the messages within. In a way, these works connect us to the past and indirectly to the future.
Can you tell us about your initial impression of the U.S.? Has that changed?
CB: My first impression here in the States was how different it was from Europe. This is a country of enormous opportunity, but being Italian and a lover of art and creativity in general, the small details of life, the "quality" of the living of one's life, is extremely important to me.
It seems to me the history of America is very modern and futuristic and consumerist, which has value, and I can appreciate it. On the other hand, consumerism—the need to do more, be more, and have more—clouds one's ability to perceive and appreciate the small details, the simple pleasures. For example, in cooking, in sex, in conversations with friends, in everyday life, and in simply observing the world. When I show my artwork to someone on a tablet or computer, Americans very often do not see the details of the pieces until I introduce them by stopping them from quickly scrolling through the photos and then zooming in on one of the works. It also happens at my live exhibitions, right in front of my works. They only digest the piece as a whole and do not think to look closely at the intricacies. I have to invite the audience to physically approach the painting and ask, “What do you see in addition to the main image?”
How did your move to LA affect your work, particularly American History?
CB: This American lifestyle has influenced my work a lot. I like to understand the history of people and places, and there is a lot to do here precisely because what you see is often not real. (I'm in LA, the movie capital of the world, where weaving illusions is an art form!) I enjoy delving deeply into the stories of people and places, and my creative work in recent years has become much more intense and much richer in narrative and symbolic detail. So much so that I, too, get lost in it and sometimes am forced to stop so as not to cover the other details, which are now decisive in the expression of the work.
My current "method," the layering of thousands of lines of ink, miles of lines, was really honed here in America. I became a pioneer of the personalities and stories contained in this sacred land through the line of the fountain pen, liquid pigments, and inks. Here, I opened a new creative window that I have to tell and make visible. So, perhaps in a way, my art contributes to this American consumerist society while also helping it recognize, appreciate, and honor that there is more to life. To living a fulfilling life. Maybe I, too, am now part of American history by immigrating here and by way of my work telling the stories of this "new world."
Celio Bordin: Website | YouTube
This interview has been edited for length and clarity. All photos published with permission of Celio Bordin.
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