THE PROCESS OF CREATIVITY WITH IRENE GUARNIERI
Irene Guarnieri is an illustrator and animator originally born in Florence, Italy. At the age of 18, she decided to study Fashion illustration BA at UAL (London College of Fashion), but first, she took a gap year in order to improve her English. She graduated from the course two years ago and then continued studying for a Master’s in Animation at the London College of Communication.
VVS: Could you tell me your pathway to how you accepted your body the way it is?
IG: All of my art is based on my own personal experience. In Italy, we have a lot of unexplainable beauty standards, and women never feel good enough. From my childhood, I was always a curvy girl, so I started to feel real pressure from society when I was around 8-9 years old. Of course, Italian people are not bad, this is just how the society is formed and that’s what everyone expects from you. Women are not allowed to be sexual. Life in London is totally different: in the big city, people are multicultural, open-minded and are not afraid to explore their sexuality. This has really changed my perspective on reality and I feel like this is my mission to teach others how to be freer and learn to love their bodies despite the beauty standards. Italy has gradually changed since I was a teenager but there’s still so much work to do because we are so far away from awareness, gender equality… But we will get there eventually, we are already on the right path.
VVS: Who do you find the most inspiring woman?
IG: For sure the plus-size model Ashley Graham. I read her book and I find her an amazing, obviously gorgeous and kind person. She explained in the book how she still struggles with her self-esteem, and even though she is a curvy model, the industry still pressures her. When it comes to artists, I have many, for example, Jenny Saville and Alina Zamanova. Jenny is so fascinating because she reflects so well the emotions and the body imperfections in, I’d say, a cruel way. Alina graduated from my course a few years before me, and her work is honestly incredible.
VVS: Could you please tell me more about your platform called “Woke Women”?
IG: I am so proud of this platform Enrica Italiano and I found together. I was doing a project about body positivity and Enrica was doing her project about women’s abuse, so we combined them together in order to create a platform called “Woke Women”. We were hosting talks, exhibitions, music events, art events and workshops all related to these two important topics. The event called “Vagina Party” was the most successful one. It was such an amazing experience because you could feel the real empowerment of 130 women gathering together with 20 women sharing their stories and emphasizing the idea of supporting each other. The energy in the room was unreal. So far this sort of event was held only in London but we plan to expand later on and move also to Italy, as both me and Enrica are Italian, so we know how the situation is there. Nowadays, the project is unfortunately not ongoing anymore because of the COVID as it’s impossible to do public events, but we still manage to do some live videos and online events with singers and artists because we don’t want to stop our activity.
VVS: How do you create your artwork?
IG: All of my illustrations are in 2D format, either made digitally with Procreate on my IPad and on paper because, to be honest since I graduated I miss paper drawings. This allows me to experiment more because I tend to get bored very easily, I prefer to draw on paper using different techniques and materials - I like to get my hands dirty! I usually work with pencils and watercolours but my favourite remains painting. Usually, the clients reach out to me through my Instagram because they like my style of art, and sometimes I just draw women that inspire me just because I like their energy and how they present themselves. A year and a half ago I drew a curvy model Jessi Melani from L.A. and tagged her, and when she saw it she asked to purchase the artwork. I was so content because that was the first artwork sold out of the EU so I truly felt confident in my art. Now I am finally starting to explore the world of 3D and I am also currently learning how to use the 4D cinema format.
VVS: How did the COVID situation influence your life and artwork?
To be honest, I always need to be surrounded by people as it helps me to develop my career, get inspired and explore myself, so it is a difficult time for me. I was fired from…
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