STEEPED IN A CLASSICAL PAINTING TRADITION, A CREATOR OF FANTASY IMAGES HAS DEVELOPED HER OWN OUTLOOK AND VISION

text by Edward M. Gómez,
with photographs of the artist in her studio by Bill Westmoreland

With every new work an artist creates — a picture, a sculpture, a dance, a song, a story, or some other production — he or she conjures up an entire universe.

That’s because, no matter how thematically, materially, or technically engaged with or rooted in the so-called real world an art-maker’s creation might be, unless limitations have been set on an artist’s efforts (as in, say, the case of certain kinds of commissioned works), like potent deities, artists tend to be the masters of their creative processes and the results they yield. Some might even incorporate into their art-making any accidents that might occur as their creative processes unfold.

With this month’s interest in how artists refer to or find inspiration in nature in developing their art and ideas in mind, we spoke with the Italian-born painter Cristina Vergano (Instagram: @cristinavergano) who keeps studios in New York City and in an old church building in northeastern, rural Pennsylvania.