Paolo Pastorino was born in Savona, son of art, he soon approaches the world of painting and ceramics..
Much of his artistic training is linked to the years spent in the family art ceramics factory, where he comes into contact with masters such as Luigi Valerisce ..
Let’s get to know him better through his answers to our questions:
Your first contact with art?
I was literally born into art in the true sense of the word, in fact my parents were artists (my father a master potter and my mother a painter) with their own traditional ceramics factory in Albisola in the 60s.
Already as a child I had the opportunity to come into contact with the artists who frequented the factory in those years, it is probably by observing with curiosity those sometimes even slightly mad characters while they were making their works, I unconsciously learned an enormous cultural background and technician who led me to find the path I travel today.
When did you realize that art would turn from a passion into a profession?
I would say come on from the twelfth year of age, in that period in fact my parents traveled a lot at art and ceramic fairs around Italy and on some occasions, in addition to their classic production, they also brought my sculptures.
Luckily for me these were always sold and thanks to these episodes the desire to create new sculptures is always greater.
At the age of twenty-two I decided to experiment with the airbrush and started a real profession in which I made helmets, motorcycle tanks, surfboards for friends and clients who greatly appreciated my work.
Obviously this startup was always supported by university studies, even if of a different kind.
Your first work?
My first work dates back to the age of three, when I made my first ceramic sculpture entitled “Magu” a character resembling a Buddha with a long pointed hat, probably what I wanted to recreate was a cartoon character with precisely the name of “magu”, honestly I was too young to remember but I still have that work at home and I keep it tightly.
To make art, do you have to have studied it?
As far as I’m concerned, art has always been in my blood, no one has ever taught me anything both in terms of visual and sculptural arts, at school I remember that my schoolmates were amazed by the drawings I made and they called me already “artist”.
From an early age what I did was to follow both my parents with great attention and curiosity while they worked and the artists who frequented the factory, I must say that I was very lucky because I experienced art at three hundred and sixty degrees.
Contrary to what one might think, my real studies were as an electronic expert and microelectronic engineer, who helped me a lot to implement my art with new technologies (CAD graphics, 3D printing, etc etc).
I must say that as an adult I have deepened my culture on the history of art and in particular of contemporary artists, in my opinion you never stop learning.
How do you choose what to portray?
Apart from the years when I was little, normally what I try to put in my art is to communicate all those situations and sensations where they remind us of past years that play a very important role, in particular I try to put a bridge between the present and the past (generationX) or a return to the 80s and 90s where the works are the personification of a childhood that, like in Pascoli’s “little boy”, seeks through the work of art to reveal the inner child capable of marveling even for the little ones what’s this.
Why is ceramic still struggling to be considered art in Italy?
In my opinion, and coming from a place where ceramics are king ( Albisola ), this is seen as a piece of furniture for its own sake, very beautiful, precious and with a story, for when I remember my father used to tell me that in Albisola something changed only around the 60s when it was frequented by very famous artists such as Lucio Fontana (with his spatialisms), Jorn, Lam, Piero Manzoni, Futurists, etc etc where the medium of ceramics assumed a different role from the classic furnishings, it is well used as a means of communicating one’s art.
Wandering through the streets of Albisola and neighboring towns it is not difficult to come across stupendous works by Fontana, Leoncillo, Manzoni and many others, it is a real open-air museum.
An anecdote you remember with a smile?
Surely the funniest was when as a little boy, I must have been around 4 years old, running around in my parents’ factory (as I usually did instead of attending kindergarten) at a certain point I tripped over a tub full of majolica (it’s a white glaze composed of pulverized glass which when fired at 950 degrees makes the ceramics vitreous) and I came out totally whitewashed and soaked