Ilaria Cortesi

Oyster River Pages: How does your own writing or art surprise you?

Ilaria Cortesi: When I look at a complete work, I often have a eureka moment, as the creative process allows me to reunite and record fragments of thought, feeling, and memory.


ORP: Do you rely more on discipline, inspiration, or something else when writing or creating artwork?

IC: The body of my work is like a catalog of the events and thoughts of my life. For me, making art is almost like keeping a journal.


ORP: Who is an up-and-coming writer or artist that you would recommend our ORP audience check out? Please link us to their site, social media, or published work so we can share it along with your response!

IC: huanhuan wang: https://www.behance.net/a6241295564077


ORP: What are three words you would use to describe yourself?

IC: Reflective, insecure, complex


ORP:
What do you see as the greatest obstacle or challenge to your personal creativity? How do you work to overcome it?

IC: My biggest challenge is to believe in myself as an artist and to keep going with my artwork, to improve, and to be authentic. The way I work on that is to listen to my inner voice to do what I want no matter what.


ORP:
What is the artist’s/writer’s greatest asset?

IC: The ability to communicate our way of understanding, engaging, and experiencing the world to somebody else and to transport other people into the world that we have created with images.

 
 

Ilaria Cortesi is a self-taught illustrator and collagist hailing from Italy and currently based in Shanghai, China, via Moscow and Tokyo. She started making art at a young age and rediscovered it recently while juggling a full-time office job and single parenthood, seeking a creative outlet. Since then, Ilaria Has adopted digital illustration and collage as a means of personal and social liberation and as a critical lens to look at stereotypical views and representations of society and individuals. Her pieces have been featured in several art and literary magazines as well as international group exhibitions. If you’re interested in seeing more of her art and/or collaborating, you can find Ilaria on Instagram @icmanekineko.

View Ilaria’s visual art from Issue 5.1 “Staircase to Nowhere” HERE.

Eneida Alcalde