Elena Cecchinato
Parents' Lips
China ink on Fabriano Paper
2006
I made this drawing the week before I gave birth to my first son Blue. It incapsulate all the feelings and expectations of becoming a mother and a parent. At that time life and death seemed so intertwined: as if by giving life to something new, a part of me had to somehow die. The title Parents Lips, refers to all the voices of my own parents still presents within me and I guess it expressed a desire to be mindful of what kind of words I would speak to my child. I have always been interested in the relationship between writing and drawing or how we can read images but also paint visions with words. Words and images, with their signs and meanings, are equally necessary to space and charge reality. They are both vehicles and mediums to unite and conceive reality, working between the ‘I’ and the world, the interior and the exterior, the knowing and the doing. They allow an opportunity for us not to be subdued by the world, but to rather interact with it, thereby ever transforming it into new narratives.
Cecchinato was born in Venice, Italy. She learned Korean and Chinese painting at Korea University in Seoul before obtaining an MA in the History of Art of Africa and Asia from SOAS, University of London. Her work has been shown internationally, as well as in London at the Westbourne Studios, Area 10Ps, and The Rug Factory. The Museum of Everything has also featured Elena’s works, as part of its exhibition#2 at Tate Modern. She has shown Transpadovano at Palazzo Moroni, Padova, in Italy; Turf at Cutlog NY, USA; and has collaborated with the Roundabout.Lx Collective and the River of Thoughts Residency hosted by Olho du Boi, both in Lisbon, Portugal. Most recently she has shown her sound painting at ‘Art in the Age of Now’ an historical show in the derelict Fulham Town Hall and ‘Art Save the Queen’ @Oxo Gallery both curated by Art Below.
