Michela Martello. Amigas, 2019. Drawing, Collage or other Work on Paper.
14 × 16 in.
Michela Martello
Born in Grosseto, Italy and having studied illustration at the IED (Europe Institute of Design), Michela Martello was initially an artist for literature whose works had been published in over 30 books over her career. In 1993 she shifted her focus to painting, and in 1998 she moved permanently to New York where she started her research as an artist-painter full time. Her work has been collected and commissioned by both public and private clients including in the Soros collection, Serafina group, CityCinema group, and Jerry Saltz collection. Martello collaborates with The Contemporary Art Modern Project in Miami, and also Galleria Giovanni Bonelli in Italy, Pen&Brush gallery in New York City, and the Parlor gallery in New Jersey.
1. Having been exposed to both American and European environments, which do you think has had the greatest impact on your art?
Both have been decisive, but if I must choose, Europe—my upbringing in Italy, Mediterranean memory, a tradition rooted in ancient Etruria with its mysterious feminine energies, ancestral memories of priestesses, and later the profound influence of Giotto’s school—shaped the symbolic core of my work. The United States, and New York in particular, gave me, as an Italian woman artist, the freedom to find and realize a voice without prejudice, a practical space to experiment, and a powerful sense of universality that still informs my practice. Equally significant is the recognition here with Indigenous presences—whose tribal traditions and the enduring beat of the drum resonate with my study of Eastern philosophies—bringing a shared, visceral influence that permeates American cultural soil.
Michela Martello. Amigas, 2019. Drawing, Collage or other Work on Paper.
14 × 16 in.
2. Of the 30 books you have published, which are your favorites? Why?
My favorites are a quartet of picture books from my earlier career as an illustrator. After an editor read a school essay of mine and liked my prose, I was invited to write the texts as well. I dedicated each book to a dear friend, titling them with their names, and—guided by my mother’s literary sensibility—shaped the texts into a poetic voice. Creating those books was deeply rewarding: writing and illustrating at once allowed me to align image, color, and form precisely with language, turning intimate friendships and memory into a small, sustained act of collaboration and devotion.
Michela Martello. Virgin, 2024. Pigments on interfacing, foam and fabric.
26 × 34 in.
3. What aspects of your artistic process define you as an artist?
There isn’t a single artistic process such as an aspect that defines me—being an artist is as innate and indivisible as being human, If I must name tendencies, they are emotional intensity, ups and down and an unusually sensitive perceptual filter: I feel deeply, see poetic connections in ordinary things (a lamppost can read as a serpent), and respond impulsively and intuitively. That sensitivity is matched by craft and ritual—stitching, layering, painting, drawing—and by a willingness to let the unexpected direct the work. In short, I am defined by a responsive, embodied imagination: feeling first, making second, and trusting the unforeseen to transform perception into image.