After the Second World War, in a destroyed and impoverished Napoli, “‘e scugnizze” (the children of Napoli) used to collected cigarette butts that the Americans threw away. Then they cleaned them and they made new cigarettes to resold to the Americans.
Some ingenious women from the neighborhood of Sanita’, who were seriously in sad condition of poverty, made underwear for her children with fabric taken from the stars and stripes flags. The fabric was heavy to be used as underwear but it was better than nothing.
During the post-war period Giuseppe lived with his family in an apartment in the neighborhood Sanita’. Upstairs there was a woman who offered a laundry service for the people of the neighborhood. At that time many American soldiers also took their uniforms to wash at the woman’s place.And so it happened that any time the Germans passed on the Sanita’ bridge,they saw the American uniforms hunging on the clotheslines, and they broke into the building where Ludovica’s grandfather lived to find out if his family, or someone else in the building, was hiding Americans soldiers. This story greatly impressed Ludovica who, since her childhood, has always listened to the anecdotes that her grandfather told her. They are anectodes that she keeps in her heart. Ludovica has visited Napoli as a child and she would like to return to visit with her grandfather. Grandfather Giuseppe moved as a teenager from Napoli to the region of Lazio.
Since then he has always worked. His niece describes him as a good wood craftsman, as well as a man with a strong artistic sensitivity and extraordinary inventiveness. All of his children, including Ludovica’s father, work in the artistic field. And Ludovica, as a good niece, could not do otherwise.
Ludovica Iue’ has been drawing since she was a child and she attended the Academy of Fine Arts. She graduated during covid time, just before the first Italian lockdown.
Her dream is to pursue an established artistic career and, at the same time, she would like to teach. We have asked her some questions, which see her involved as a young woman as well as an artist, and that we hope will be able to make her know more in depth.
LI – I am a tendentially impulsive person. Although over time I have learned to reflect more on actions before taking them. If I am passionate about something, I do it in an almost maniacal way, so much that I investigate every aspect of that particular thing.
In a certain sense, my artistic career has reflected these aspects of my character.I have always depicted what was important to me and what I was passionate about.From both an iconographic and a symbolic point of view, and although the methods used have been different from each other for a period, I believe that the common thread has always been dictated by this my impulsive need to do what I feel at that particular moment.
My paintings partly reflect this impulsiveness: it is a fast painting, in one go, partly figurative and partly abstract, it depends on the case. It is always dictated exclusively by my mood of the moment.I dedicate more time on planning a work than I do on its realization. In fact, I never spend hours or days creating a painting. I love to solve things quickly, reflecting first but acting quickly.The well-known contemporary artist Paolo Angelosanto, who has been my Professor of painting and who today is a a very dear friend, has always pushed me to work quickly on the That is why I will always thank him. –
Q – You have Neapolitan origins, to what extent have Neapolitan tradition and culture influenced your art? –
LI – I come from two very different families, but they have always had one thing in common: the propensity for the arts. I cannot deny that both sides of the family have contributed to a great extent in forming me as an artist, yet there is a phrase that I have always said since I was a child: “I am a Iue’”. My grandfather Giuseppe was born in the Rione Sanità, and he grew up in a post-war Napoli. He is the penultimate of nine children, and he has always told me stories about how. he and his brothers, had to make do for a living. Not being able to afford to buy almost anything, they had to invent and create everything they needed from scratch. Theydid that always maintaining the enthusiasm and irony typical of the Neapolitans. These experiences have led them to become men and women with great manual skills.Although I am convinced that part of their creative talent was innate and, consequently, passed down to subsequent generations. My grandfather is a person with excellent manual and musical skills, and from an early age I have always tried to follow in his footsteps, as did my father and my uncle before me.Today, after many years, I find myself an artist able to work with many materials and supports, and I owe this undoubtedly to him and his precious teachings. –
Q – What are the artistic forms through which you express yourself? –
LI – My medium par excellence has always been painting, although by nature I am inclined to always want to explore new artistic forms. Music has also played a fundamental role in my life, but when it came to choosing what to specialize in, I chose the figurative arts, because I believe it is the most suitable means for me to express what I feel and think. –
Q – Someone says that art can save the world. What do you think about it? –
LI – I think this “someone” is right. From my point of view, the world can only be saved by us, by people. But without the beauty of art and without the feelings that it arouses, the human being would remain arid, apathetic and insipid. A world without art would be an empty world inhabited by empty people. –
Q – Do you travel a lot? If so, which countries have you visited? –
LI – Unfortunately in my life I have not yet had the opportunity to travel as much as I would have liked. I love traveling very much and in those few moments when I was able to do so I have always been eager to learn as much as possible about the art and culture of the place I visited. To date, I have visited most of Italy, part of the United States, France and Israel. –
Q -Which country particularly struck you? –
LI – A person dear to me one day defined Rome as an “open-air museum”: in reality, I think this definition is applicable to practically all of Italy. it is difficult to find a country in the world rich which is rich in art and culture like ours is. But if I have to think of another thriving place from an artistic point of view among those that I have had the pleasure of visiting, I would say that Israel is undoubtedly the nation that has mostly impressed. The fusion of so many different cultures and religions has taken art to a higher level: Middle Eastern, European and American influences make Israeli art without equal in my opinion. It is a country where the new generations are always very up to date, while constantly drawing inspiration from the arts of the past. –
Q – How many hours a day do you spend on the web? –
LI – More than I would like, to be honest. I think this is the world we now live in. It is a world that is digitizing more and more every day. In some way we have to keep up with the times. I’m trying to take what the internet has good to offer and I am trying to understand better which mechanisms can be useful and constructive, and which ones can be harmful. –
Q – What are the possibilities of digital painting? –
LI – The possibilities of digital painting are potentially endless. Softwares are improving more and more, offering tools more and more similar to the “traditional” ones, which allow to obtain surprising visual results. Even the concepts of reproducibilityand the use of a work, when it comes to “digital work”, should not be underestimated . Surely, technology is a great help for the visibility of a work and for its ease of execution. However, I believe that a digital work will never aspire to the magic and poetry released by a physical and material work. –
Q -Living with art in Italy is difficult. Have you had any regret for choosing this path? –
LI – Never. It is what I love to do and it is what I will always do, regardless of the profit. Now in Italy it is difficult to live on almost anything. I see my friends who have degrees in literature, engineering, law. Many of them have the same difficulties as me. So I have never had a thought like “if I had been a lawyer…”or ,”if I had been an engineer…” . I am proud of who I am and I am proud of the path I have made. And I will be happy to contribute to the education of future generations, pushing them to embrace art and not be afraid to choose it as a life path. –
Q -Western culture considers art only and exclusively what is business, what is salable. What are your considerations about it? –
LI – I don’t actually think that’s totally true. We should open an interminable discourse on “what is art and what is not”. What really defines the concept of art? what distinguishes art from decoration and craftsmanship? I think that the salable in a broad sense, just because it is such, cannot be considered art. art does not bend to what the mass wants to buy, art exists by itself, it exists to be enjoyed, to make man questioned, sometimes to make fun of man. And it is often anything but salable. Nowadays there are so many artistic forms and so many means to make the works visible that it is no longer possible to distinguish what is art and what is not. But in our Western culture, there are still many art lovers, not only of ancient and modern art but also of contemporary art. This is why I believe that it is not totally right to think that today art is only linked to business … because in reality art, the real one, has nothing to do with business: it still exists and is still defined as such. –
Q – Do you have a dream in the drawer? –
LI – I have too many dreams in my drawer … but I think the greatest is to be able to lead a quiet life, continuing to do what I love, to pass on what I know to new generations, and to carve out for me a very small space in the history of the art of twenty-first century. –
