Elisa Cantarelli

"Dotting" is my personal way to colour an image, actually a photograph.

Ever since I was a child I have always loved to be creative and play with different media. More than drawing I was passionate about colouring. My parents used to buy me lots of colouring books.

I joined an art high school and then the Fine Art Academy in Bologna. This art environment together with my professors helped to transform colouring in "dotting", which has been let free so to play with different media and techniques on photographs. It was 2004 and during these years the experience turned developing what was a hobby into a passion, into Art.

From a photograph, through the computer, to a printed image and then painted, actually "dotted".

Throughout the whole process, the best part is "dotting", the part I love the most and viewers too: dropping the paint (or glitter) colour on colour, shade on shade covering the whole surface with dots.

I am filled satisfaction when a viewer asks to touch my work. The image is first in my mind, then caught on camera, transferred to a computer screen, then printed on photographic paper, then "dotted", becoming three-dimensional which is the main attraction for the viewer.

With my technique I can play around with two different main types of subjects:

Graphic; where the dots add the tactile three-dimensional sensation to a bi-dimensional work.

Pictorial; where the dots work as a sort of powerful decoration emphasizing the image underneath.

My technique involves the viewer from a visual perception to a tactile one giving substance to both the graphic and pictorial subject.

I usually work on series on multiply shoots ideally to give a route for an exhibition and also to be able to come back and forth working on old and new shoots at the same time. And I like to look back and work on old images but in a different way.

My ideas come from my surroundings and since I moved to London from a small town in north of Italy my inspiration has been given a boost; but I am deeply attached to my roots.

I like visiting contemporary exhibitions and fairs to keep updated and inspired by other contemporary artists and the media. At the moment I am experimenting with my technique on different subjects, surfaces and objects, trying to stretch the boundaries to see how far my DOTS can go.