Here you can view some of the original paintings and artwork that Donatella has created on a daily basis, without pause, since she first started drawing and painting in early 2006 some months before her 50th birthday, to the great surprise and joy of her immediate family. She executed her first painting using her fingertips as brushes, dipped directly into the acrylics and smearing the colors quickly onto a rectangular piece of unprepared wood, 13 x 46 cms (see image #1).
Donatella paints by instinct, with no preconception or plan for the embryo image developing before her eyes. Her initial brush strokes dart around the canvas at random, improvising like a jazz musician. As she moves forward, the lines, shapes, tones and colors assume a life of their own which she nurtures according to the “demands” of each assembling element. The composition can just as easily develop into an abstract, as a group of graceful human forms (usually female – often discreetly erotic), a portrait of an unknown person, an imaginary landscape, a real-life situation soon to come about, or depictions of family gatherings and social events that took place during her childhood in the lively farming community in central-southern Italy where she was born and raised. Her paintings are usually more that half completed before she has any idea what her subject is. Even then the image is constantly in flux, and what may seem like a group of people before breakfast, one hour later becomes a pot of flowers, by lunchtime an abstract, and by evening a floor mat in her laundry room if she becomes exasperated by the elusive vision !
Donatella has received no previous art tuition, lessons or instruction whatsoever and, until early 2006, had not even taken a photograph, let alone attempted a drawing or a painting. Nevertheless, she has always had an innate and highly individual gift for compositional harmony and color balance that has greatly enhanced her home environment, both inside and outside. She could be categorized as a “spiritual-painter” or “artistic-medium”, but being a very practical, down-to-earth, no-nonsense sort of person, she would never entertain such a label and probably wouldn’t even admit to being “a painter” at all!
She was born in a small village in the foothills of the Apennine mountains, near the ancient town of Benevento, in Campania, about 80 kms east of Naples. She now lives in Tuscany with her British husband and three children.
She has found inspiration for her work in many places, but especially from her friend Giusi who is “one of the most creative people I know” – a fantastic chef, amazing gardener and the operator of one of the most enjoyable Bed & Breakfast rental homes in Tuscany.