I have completed my UCAS application and while I am not going to disclose here my choices – it wouldn’t be fair – I am here posting my personal statement as finalised on my application. I am now waiting for the tutors’ feedback and for them to approve it and send it back to UCAS.
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I have spent the past two years on a UAL Foundation Diploma at Blackburn College. I have volunteered, participated, supported, learned, unlearned, made, created, destroyed, covered, scratched, revealed, cried, discussed, argued, planned, sketched, installed, designed; and grown. I don’t remember the “me” before Sept 2018, the one who was living without creating. Now, I want more of all this. As much as I have always sketched, planned and structured ideas and installations (the last one in May 2018 as a solo exhibition), I am also very well aware that there are areas in which I am weak and in need to explore in order to find my hand and voice which I know are within me; also I want mentored time to strengthen what I already have and know belongs to me. Both these areas are still vulnerable and raw. Hence, I am interested in pursuing the degree path in order to provide me with a structured academic perspective and a liberal and creative environment, to have my boundaries pushed, and even to be left in unchartered waters which will allow me to explore, experience, experiment and strengthen my core. I am looking for an environment where my means of communication (writing and art) will support each other, both informed by my experience as a therapist. My interests are in the exploration of volume, space, and location, and what place has communication in all this. When creating, I am thinking in terms of Installation, 3D, performance, interdisciplinarity. I learn from everyone but especially from Nicholson, Rothko, Abramovic, Mondrian, Emin, Gormley, Christo, Cragg, Steir, Hirst, Spalletti, Glassford, Joyce, Pound, Woolf; but also Celiberti, Valle, Avon, Galle and Stark. I find theoretical exploration, academic and contextual research, and delving into the philosophy of the arts as important as the creative process. My creative practice is informed by all my interests: old languages, Mesopotamic populations, semiotics and linguistics, spirituality, philosophy and psychotherapy, adventure and women studies, writing and literary analysis. In 2008 I moved back to the UK from Italy, and since then I have spent most of my time changing, writing, and working as an existential psychotherapist. I started by being interested in art as a means to push boundaries of clients and/or viewers, allowing them to explore different levels of awareness, until I found that the art of creating is actually vital for me and my own existence. I find fascinating, albeit not without pain, the exploration of identity, self, conditioning, the need for validation, and the art of translating a 2D writing experience into a 3D (self)-portraiture. At first sight, I am a 52-year-old Italian woman, but there is more. I am a writer, psychotherapist, and artist. I don’t believe in labels, but I have been described as sensitive, imaginative, congruent, experimental, wildly curious, lyrically logical, and with a very strong sense of integrity. I have never studied art in a conventional way prior to 2018, but I have done technical drawing for about 4 years between 1981 and 1985. During my 2 years at UWC of the Atlantic, I was involved with drama and the local theatre and I have used my skills in setting up productions and following a company on tour. In 1996 I started writing and since then I have published 5 books. In 2005 I have finally bought a camera and during the following three years I have then created seven exhibitions and conceptualised them as full journeys and installations. All details are on my website http://www.matildetomat.com and my books available on Amazon.
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