Irene Donatini

By approaching art as an intensified version of journaling, I aim to maintain its close connection to the mundanity of everyday life. Daily landscapes, moments, and figures appear in my work as characters of a contradictory fantasy world that contains, among other things, a gigantic heart-broken Minotaur locked up on the top floor of a Dutch house with a mouse, a labyrinth as big as the world, and a crazy inventor constantly busy building machines of dubious nature. 

A sense of voyeurism nourishes my desire to play with the audience’s perception and participation, enlarging or shrinking their well-known landscapes, giving them access to else inaccessible “other sides”, such as the inside of the walls of their room, or a glimpse of themselves from outside their window. 

Meanwhile, frustration and boredom fuel my resistance towards orthodox methods of working, which recently led me to contemplate stillness as a place of learning, researching, and even making: how small of a gesture is necessary to spark an affinity?