What happened?

Valentina Cipullo’s journey as an artist revolves around portraits, faces and bodies. Her work flirts with that peculiar and mysterious object found in portraits: the gaze.
Her paintings feature female figures who are completely isolated from any time-space reference. These women, surrounded by monochrome backgrounds, represent a mores animunque, the enactment of a spark of emotion which her models’ eyes seem to communicate.
Their bodies and faces, borrowed from magazines, become masks. They are clothes that dress up the feelings, emotions, fears and the psyche of the artist and then show them under a new light. Their eyes then, though in different colours, represent the essence of a self portrait of the artist. The artist is placed in a three way exchange of looks between herself, the other self (the figure) and the eye of the spectator. The artist’s inner world is displayed in the outward appearance of her female figures who are not intended as the mere representation of a subject. They are a performance of the individuality of her own being, the unveiling of truth.