Raffaella Carrà
Project: "Pop Icons"
Year: 2024
Dimensions: 60x60x1.5 (cm)
Technique: Acrylic and digital inkjet print on canvas
Collection: Private (T. Mutimer - London)
DESCRIPTION AND GENESIS OF THE WORK
Considered by many to be the "queen of Italian television"Raffaella Carrà embodied a unique energy, capable of crossing geographical and cultural boundaries.
Italian and international critics have consecrated her as a
«pop culture icon» in Europe and Latin America.
Between the Seventies and Eighties, her smile, her freedom and her stage power made her a
pioneer of television feminism, a symbol of emancipation and a new awareness of the female body and desire.
Over time, it has been celebrated for its extraordinary impact on pop culture and the entertainment industry, so much so that it has been
compared to Donna Summer. Vogue España called it a
"an intergenerational phenomenon, of social and cultural significance, destined to be remembered forever", while The Guardian saw in her
"the pop star who taught Europe the joy of sex",
in an era still marked by Catholic bigotry.
My artwork is born from the desire to capture that luminous essence
which Raffaella naturally emanated.
I was inspired by a photograph I've always loved, in which her gaze and gentle smile encapsulate everything she represented: the modernity, the grace, the power of a woman who transformed every gesture into an icon.
The background, created with digital inkjet technique, is the result
of a visual and emotional research.
I wanted to evoke the television sets of those years, which as a child I could only imagine in colour in front of a black and white television,
blending them with the majolica of domestic kitchens,
warm, familiar places where television was a collective ritual.
In this fusion of memory, colour and form, the homage to a figure who has not only marked the history of the show comes to life,
but also that of the Italian imagination.
