Lucrezia Magazine

Q: I've noticed that you're not one for providing an elaborate biography, but your work – as listed on your official page – has been featured in numerous print magazines, and exhibitions. You take it all in your stride, and have produced work that challenges the standard female image. Your digital art works from 2002 – 2006 depict women in alternate realities, with alien-like limbs, and surreal predicaments. Tell us more about your inspiration and the backgrounds (imagery, model) of surreal worlds of your models.

Francesco d'Isa: Of course, I feel pretty uncomfortable with my own biography: I like too much to lie and to lie about oneself it's an overused behaviour. I agree with you, my photographic digital art works are quite alien and surreal. Computers give us a sort of omnipotence on photography: I take an image and I feel like "ok, this is the real world" (of course it is not, but this is another story); then I start to play: I bring reality through my vision and the image comes out different. You can call it surreal, but maybe is closer to my "inner photos". It's just a figurative interpretation. My inspiration are wide - ancient and contemporary art, cinema and books, tv and advertisements, I use everything from Leonardo da Vinci to H.R.Giger, with love and without respect.

Q:In the process of creating a work, how do you begin: model first, concept second or a little of both?

Francesco: Maybe both. I mean, usually the model comes first and the idea is born watching the image. But when I browse through models and photos, I'm not just looking: I'm looking for something. So I could tell that the concept comes first.

Q: In some of your digital art images, the female models aren't like the usual glamour models. Some are embedded in human organs. Solo une attimo is one that I find striking, because it depicts a woman (who may be pregnant), embedded in what appears to be a human heart that is split open, and suspended by metallic wire. What statements do you make through through similar images? World, woman, life in general?

Francesco: I like horror's sensuality. I think life is full of many horrible things - there's something pretty, something beautiful, but it's full of horrors for sure. So part of my statement is to find something that I can love in the horrors. Love itself, for example, can be horrible and wonderful - most of the time both.To live, we must accept this pesky ambiguity, and our confusion about the whole thing. Sometimes pain is classy, some other times is rude. If I must suffer - at least that classy it is!

Q: The horrors or surreal challenges that your digital work explores are far from being rude. Sometimes I get the impression that the model within the images takes all of life's ambiguities in her stride. There is an abstract acceptance, and metaphor; the images relate how women endure experiences such as birth, death, pain, separation, introspection and displacement, like it is a part of the human condition or (dare I say?) a part of their condition as women. What would you say to that?

Francesco: Is for sure a part of human condition, but as you said women have a sort of "elective affinity" with such experiences. Women are for sure a perfect medium to express this kind of themes, so I agree with you!

Q: There is an obvious different (in terms of technique) between your earlier digital works and your vector inkworks. The colours are lighter, and they tend to add a lighter perspective (in relation to mood), but you still have the abstract or non conventional anatomical poses. In works like Circle, with the woman sipping blood or sipping liquid from a straw that comes out of her chest). In Mirror the woman has three arms, two cover her breasts, and the third covers her pudendum. In Stupro/Rape, she has a black object in (or on) her abdomen, something that can mean various things (according to interpretation). There is a duality in all these images (colors versus pose/statement). How would you summarize the women (in terms of concept) in each?

Francesco: In my vector artwoks the fantastic realism surrender to decorative patterns. My themes feels lighter with a decorative mood and pastel colors, but the root is the same. It's like the same word in another language. My vector women are calm and cold. They know how to dress their pain and retain their humanity. I envy them. In a certain sense these women say: "You can look me and I can't look you but I understand you and you can't understand me". These women are portrayed when they look at themself without fear or love. At least, this is one of my attempts.

Q: It's an effective contrast. What are your other attempts?

Francesco: To tell the truth, I discover my attempts looking at my results. To create something is a learning process more than an aimed process to me.

Q: I've also noticed that the models are similar in their glamor. Their facial expressions, and features remind me of the glamorous actresses of the 30's, 40's and 50's. Is this intentional, or the result of the overall process?

Francesco:It's not intentional, but I always loved glamorous actresses of the 30's, 40's and 50's. I like the way they express their femininity. They inspire more love than sex, and I find this really erotic.

Q: The extra limbs: the third arm, or biological straw (below left), how does this express the feminine in your opinion?

Francesco: The extra arm is just a trick to express one more feminine position in one static image. We are used to create our figurative ideas from movement, so a third arm can feel 'natural'.

Q: Pornsaints depicts art that differs from your ink vectors and digital creations. What is the basis of Pornsaints, and what did you initially set out to accomplish?

Francesco: Pornsaints is something like a serious play, an experimental project, so I try to develop new styles with these works. The Pornsaints done so far are mainly an attempt to merge my digital and vector styles in a new one. I want to join my flat decorative colors with digital photorealism. Working with porn I feel like I've the rights of being bold, so these works are my experimental table.

Q: In your pornsaints essay, your definition of a saint is the polar opposite of the Christian definition. There would be considerable differences of opinion as to who satisfies that definition where porn stars are concerned (debate on the example they give, and the perception or distinction of the prime elements of a 'social good example'). You refer to Ulrich (the character of Ulrich in your essay), and as I haven't read that text, I'll refer to Raskolnikov (who also finds redemption after murder, and his own traumatic inner journey in Crime and Punishment), and he may be classified as a 'saint'. Those designated saints reached (allegedly) a realm of inner peace, whereas many of today's porn stars are plagued by physical insecurity and/or competition (there is always another female starlet on the horizon), so for some people in certain societies/cultures, the term saint would not apply to them.

Francesco: In the pornsaints essay, my definition of a saint is mainly philosophical, inspired by many religious concepts and beliefs. It's closer to Mystic and Oriental definitions (Taoism most of all) more than canonic Christan. Briefly, if God is the most unreachable and inhuman concept like I think it is, the saint, in character of human being closer to God, renounces to his/her humans features and identity. A cool separation from the world like an extreme behavior and participation are one way to overstep humanity. Raskolnikov like a pornstar tries this way. It's a painful way - like the ascetic one as well. Like I wrote in the essay "...the pornsaint dwells in the house of the saints, but got there traveling a different way, and came in knocking at another door. If the saint, in a way, obtained the absolute by clambering up on God (any God), the pornsaint obtained it climbing over man. His way doesn't go through renouncing the world of man in favor of the world of God, but through the utmost simultaneous participation in opposite aspects of the human world...". In a few worlds, extremes can coincide (a pornstar and an ascetic, a killer and an holy man) in the attempt to reach the coincidence of opposites (God). But as I wrote: "...this doesn't mean (quite obviously) that each and every porn actor is a pornsaint – for what we know, they're simply pornstars. Pornsaints might not even actually exist, but what interests us is that they might exist, and how they might exist."

Q: You mention the freedom that comes from sexual intercourse, but in pornography the clothes may be removed, but the face is layered with copious makeup and this tends to create a mask. How did you decide to approach your portraits, to present the opposite of what porn presents?

Francesco: Freedom that comes from sexual intercourse is like freedom from our identities. Freedom that comes from sexual intercourse "at work" (pornstars) is more like freedom from humanity. They play: without clothes but layered with makeup - like you say, they've a mask. Pornstars can be deep into the filth of life with detachment. They can live physical stresses, flesh excess, competition, star system horrors, discrimination, relationships problems etc, but they play sex. I try to portray this deep and detached participation with life.

Q:The debate surrounding sex (the distinctions of 'good sex', 'correct' sex or the moral righteousness surrounding sex versus porn) takes many forms. The detachment that you describe, as well as the 'filth' of life, isn't exclusive to sex or porn, in that all occupations have their fair share of excrement one has to rise above, or tolerate. Your approach to presenting female adult actresses differs from the norm. How have the models responded to your approach?

Francesco: Depends on the model, but they responded very well. They feel honored and pleased for being Pornsaint. Adult models are used to be portrayed in nude and sexual explicit positions, and they are more than happy to change, seeing themselves as saints (porn one of course) in an artwork. Artworks can be hard, explicit and intimate with the models as porn at heart.

Q: It's an interesting perspective, one that is missing from conventional images of adult stars. What is the next step on Pornsaints journey for you as the Pornsaints 'Pope'? The Pornsaints project also includes other artists. Are there any future plans to present (publication) or exhibit work (as a group) as a group?

Francesco: Sure, Church must go on. We are organizing art exhibitions in some galleries here in Europe. From 14.6. to 3.7 I'll be at Gallery ZERO (Berlin) with Ida Belogi from "Pornsaints", and around September / October I'll be in London with the whole collective.

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For more information on Francesco, including updates and visual treats, visit his official page and Pornsaints.org.

All Images © Francesco d'Isa