GUT FEELING (Artikel im Magazin NOVUM 11/2011)
Some illustrations are simply a delight and lift the mood. Hamburg artist Larissa Bertonasco has the knack of producing them, using a success recipe that is all her own.
When real passion goes into creating things, it shows. An example: for her dissertation project, Larissa Bertonasco compiled an artistic cookbook, which she called „La nonna La cucina La vita“. It was a collection of her italian grandmother’s anecdotes and recipes, with Larissa’s own illustrations. Published by Gerstenberg Verlag, it was a handsome volume, soon translated into several other languages, and is now in its 12th edition.
Larissa Bertonasco initially read Italian and History of Art at Siena and Hamburg, completing her degree in Illustration at Hamburg’s University of Applied Sciences in 2003. Cooking and Italian culture continued to figure quite importantly in this young artist’s life as a graduate, and two more books followed quickly – „Spuren in der Polenta“ (Clues in the Polenta), a children’s book with lots of recipies, and „La cucina verde“, a vegetable cookbook feating recipes by the Swiss chef Carlo Bernasconi.
The techniques Bertonasco uses vary from work to work: sometimes acrylic, sometimes coloured pencil or crayon, or again it may be collage or mixed techniques. „I work more or less by gut feeling“, she says, „and I’ll use whatever comes to hand – the fact that my work is handmade is the important bit.“ Throughout Bertonasco’s creative process it’s the haptic or touchy-feely aspects that she regards as crucial and indispensable, along with other senses like smell and perception: she only uses the computer for scanning and minor corrections.
Bertonasco has her own book projects, but also works as a freelance illustrator for magazines, publishers and advertisement agencies, provides illustrations for a weekly column, and designs book covers. And there’s more: she has been joint editor and contributor to SPRING, the female graphic artist’s magazine, since 2004; she run’s children’s weeks, literature weeks and the Dresden Summer School, organises workshops for school students and arranges exhibitions and readings. Many of us, given a busy life like that, would find hard to be creative as well. But Bertonasco offers advice that is very simple, and works. „The important thing is not to take yourself or your work too seriously,“ she says, „and to keep calm and relaxed even when something is not coming up to the standards you set yourself. Work is important, art is important, sure, but family and friends, yoga and dancing and just chilling out play an equally important roll in my life as an artist. You have to achieve a balance, in yourself and in the things you do. If you can achieve that,“ Larissa Bertonasco insists, „the good pictures follow of their own accord...“
Some illustrations are simply a delight and lift the mood. Hamburg artist Larissa Bertonasco has the knack of producing them, using a success recipe that is all her own.
When real passion goes into creating things, it shows. An example: for her dissertation project, Larissa Bertonasco compiled an artistic cookbook, which she called „La nonna La cucina La vita“. It was a collection of her italian grandmother’s anecdotes and recipes, with Larissa’s own illustrations. Published by Gerstenberg Verlag, it was a handsome volume, soon translated into several other languages, and is now in its 12th edition.
Larissa Bertonasco initially read Italian and History of Art at Siena and Hamburg, completing her degree in Illustration at Hamburg’s University of Applied Sciences in 2003. Cooking and Italian culture continued to figure quite importantly in this young artist’s life as a graduate, and two more books followed quickly – „Spuren in der Polenta“ (Clues in the Polenta), a children’s book with lots of recipies, and „La cucina verde“, a vegetable cookbook feating recipes by the Swiss chef Carlo Bernasconi.
The techniques Bertonasco uses vary from work to work: sometimes acrylic, sometimes coloured pencil or crayon, or again it may be collage or mixed techniques. „I work more or less by gut feeling“, she says, „and I’ll use whatever comes to hand – the fact that my work is handmade is the important bit.“ Throughout Bertonasco’s creative process it’s the haptic or touchy-feely aspects that she regards as crucial and indispensable, along with other senses like smell and perception: she only uses the computer for scanning and minor corrections.
Bertonasco has her own book projects, but also works as a freelance illustrator for magazines, publishers and advertisement agencies, provides illustrations for a weekly column, and designs book covers. And there’s more: she has been joint editor and contributor to SPRING, the female graphic artist’s magazine, since 2004; she run’s children’s weeks, literature weeks and the Dresden Summer School, organises workshops for school students and arranges exhibitions and readings. Many of us, given a busy life like that, would find hard to be creative as well. But Bertonasco offers advice that is very simple, and works. „The important thing is not to take yourself or your work too seriously,“ she says, „and to keep calm and relaxed even when something is not coming up to the standards you set yourself. Work is important, art is important, sure, but family and friends, yoga and dancing and just chilling out play an equally important roll in my life as an artist. You have to achieve a balance, in yourself and in the things you do. If you can achieve that,“ Larissa Bertonasco insists, „the good pictures follow of their own accord...“
