Interview with Emiliano Stefano Cavalli ESC76: The Artist With Two Hearts
Emiliano Stefano Cavalli (ESC76) presents us with pop art that bursts from the canvas with vitality, feeling, and a dash of humor. His work draws on many threads that run through the culture. History, literature, and pop music are all fair game in an ESC76 series.
Visiting one of his shows in Le Marais is like stepping into a cartoon kaleidoscope slash time machine, where the luminaries of so many zeitgeists that have come before appear in a flattened world of bright color and cut-out forms.
If that sounds like a fun and hallucinatory reimagining of pop art, that’s because it is.
As a rpivate guide offering Modern Art tours in Pompidou center, I wanted to better understand the work, so we sat down with ESC76 to discuss his journey as an artist and how he understands art itself.
Can you tell us about your work and what made you start painting?
It’s hard to define what exactly made me start painting. I don’t remember. I think I’ve painted and drawn my whole life.
What I do remember, though, was this round table in my house, just in front of the main door, always full of pencils, markers and paper sheets. I remember sitting there, often with my mother, spending hours drawing.
She used to draw flowers while I was drawing a bit of everything. This table is a witness to my evolution—from paper sheets when I was a little boy to bigger ones when I started the art school and interior architecture class.
Many artists have been inspired by someone in their family or their entourage. Is that the case for you, too?
Yes, definitely.
I’ve been lucky enough to be surrounded by people who have always believed in me and encouraged me. They taught me to appreciate art and immersed me in it since I was very little.
Maybe it was their plan. Maybe they understood that I could feed on it.
Three persons, in particular, encouraged me: my uncle (a passionate art collector), another uncle (gruff with everyone but me), and undeniably, my Grandmother. She owned a school for art in Italy that allowed me as a child to attend modeling classes and spend afternoons reading art books in the library of her institute.
Was there an event that marked the start of your path as an artist?
I don’t think there is a specific event. My style is influenced by my everyday life.
The economic crisis Italy faced in 2010 probably pushed me to quit my job, sell my house, and move to a new city to invest in myself and dedicate my time completely to art.
I remember that I stopped painting for a while because of a criticism that judged my style “not exciting at all” and “flavorless.”
This caused me to reject color for a while until I understood that, when growing up, you can’t like something in a “universal way.” There are no rules about what’s exciting or not.
A few years later, I sold two paintings to Chris Martin, the singer of Coldplay, and completed a portrait for the Italian singer Laura Pausini!
Artists often wrestle with the concept of art, arriving at their own definition. How do you define art?
Art is hard to define.
I’d like to say that for me, it is more a way to communicate, make people smile, lighten them, and move them, but at the same time, make them understand that colorful paintings can also hide much deeper meanings.
One of my characteristics is that I often use adhesive ribbons with the word “fragile” on them. For me, declaring our fragility is an act of love, a declaration to the world of how precious we can be despite our imperfections.
"Fragile" is making yourself available for an embrace without considering the consequences.
I love drawing hearts! The heart for me is like a portrait, a container of what we have inside but also what we’d like to take out. I believe that when we are born, we are given two hearts: the first is anatomical, the second is emotional.
Our emotional heart is endowed with infinite space, but it is enclosed in the confined space of our body. Often when we happen to feel pain, joy or love it is because our emotional heart is making space. It changes shape, touches our edges, settles down, and allows us to breathe correctly again.
I like to photograph, draw, and assemble it. In this way, I simply try to make “space.” Our heart hides and shows, but above all, it changes colors and shapes so fast that we can’t even imagine it.
Art has no strict definition. My goal is to express my art and color a very small part of the world in my own way.
Need a Private Art Tour in Paris ?
To understand and appreciate more the Modern Art of Paris, we offer many tours in Le Marais and in Paris Museums and France National Museums.
Here is what we reccomend for begginers :
Private tour of the Musée Picasso in Le Marais (to do with a private guide but we need to book a right-to-speak in advance or with a an in-house guide)
Private tour of the Musée Pompidou for Modern Art (to do with a guide)
Audio tour of the Paris Modern Art Museum MAM (to do with or without a guide. An audio tour is fine.)
Visit the Louis Vuitton Foundation for Modern Art exhibits : We covered Basquiat Vs Warhol, Monet & Mitchell, and more.
For advanced art tour to fully encapsulate the origins of our actual Modern Art currents:
Private tour of Musée Orsay to understand the Art revolutions that led to Modern Art.
Visit to Gustave Moreau museum
You can examine our full itinerary for Art Lovers in Paris : 7 days of Art in Paris where we imagine the best way to see art museums in Paris taking into account the reality, the faisability and the opening hours, based on our exeperience as local guides.
Contact Flore Gurrey for private tour in Paris inquiries : flore@tours-in-paris.com
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