Here, we ask designers to take a selfie and give us an inside look at their life.
Occupation: Artist, sculptor, video artist.
Instagram: @ivo_bisignano
Hometown: Regalbuto, Sicily.
Studio location: Tel Aviv and London.
Describe what you make: I delight in any type of art, really. I began my career with fashion illustration (Prada, Missoni), and moved on to animation, video art, painting, and sculpting in a wide variety of materials.
The most important thing you’ve designed to date: My last exhibition, HUMAN FORMS, in the ancient Southern Cave at Beit Guvrin-Maresha National Park outside of Jerusalem. The exhibition is based around namesake wooden sculptures of “Human Forms,” as well as video artworks and hand-drawn animations. I wanted to install Human Forms in the incredible Southern Cave at Beit Guvrin in order to establish a temporary home for the work but within a historic and archeological context within a historical and archaic context. In this case, the “museum” is the site itself.
Describe the problem your work solves: Being an artist, I create; I don’t solve problems. I try to evolve the thought and then share it. In my visions, my work is a poignant sense of nostalgia, applied to characters, both real and imaginary. And these are often linked to references from world literature and cinema, with an often surrealistic atmosphere.
Describe the project you’re working on now: My collection with Disney is the first-ever licensed artisanal carpet by The Walt Disney Company. The series of 25, limited-edition carpets, research-analyzed the techniques found across the ateliers and factories of traditional Persian carpet weavers, as well as timeless Indian floral motifs that were popularly woven into carpets in the 1800s. I applied this vision of design, art, and textiles—within the figures of Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, and Donald Duck—while incorporating each character into the motif itself.
A new or forthcoming project we should know about: FEAST Collection, a set of ceramic plates for Ottolenghi by Serax. For this collection, I joined forces with the creative team in Ottolenghi, all of them good friends of mine, soulmates, really. The result is a collection characterized by an impulsive gesture of an O-shaped brushstroke, combined with motifs relating to vegetables. A maniacal work in drawing many times with different techniques a simple motif such as the O of Ottolenghi and infinite varieties of vegetables with various techniques where simplicity becomes an obsession for quality.
What you absolutely must have in your studio: History books, Debussy, Michelangelo Antonioni, Proust, Anna Magnani, a photo of my husbund, Lakmé by Léo Delibes, my father’s photo, my Japanese brushes.
What you do when you’re not working: I always work. It is not easy to empty my mind to devote myself to something else but being an omnivore, even when I read or watch a film or travel, I continue to work, I photograph with my heart and mind what can serve me.
Sources of creative envy: I continue to use my instinct as a child, that is, I try to look at things as if it were the first time.
The distraction you want to eliminate: the aggressiveness of the people, in a return to civic sense but above all to have respect for stillness. people are scared of silence.
Concrete or marble? Marble and wood.
High-rise or townhouse? Fallingwater house by Frank Lloyd Wright, with my husband Alex Meitlis, Carla (our pig), and Hugo, (our dog).
Remember or forget? Always REMEMBER.
Aliens or ghosts? Ghosts, in alien dress.
Dark or light? Darkness and light. They are complementary things for my work and for my life. I work and create with the shadows.
