Psychology and Art: Changing Perception
Artist and Former Clinical Psychologist
EPISODE #41
Silvana Ravena is an artist who connects psychology and art. A former Clinical Psychologist. She holds degrees in Art History, Art Therapy and a master's degree in Visual Arts. She has showcased her art throughout the US, Brazil, and Europe.
She received prestigious international prizes in the USA and Germany and her artworks have been featured in several international art publications and TV art shows.
Silvana says that the human soul is her greatest source of inspiration. And of course, I asked her: What is the soul?
The connections between psychology and art have been Silvana’s passion and the constant subject of her paintings.
The intention of her work is to motivate people to creatively question what they are seeing, and to get in touch with their innermost being.
She says that art is a type of embodiment in which experience creates matter that creates experience. It is a sensitive phenomenology that awakens perception by addressing the senses directly.
To learn more about Silvana Ravena please visit her website: https://www.silvanaravena.com/home.php
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FULL BIO
Silvana LaCreta Ravena is a versatile painter who works in oils, resin and encaustic, creating series of abstract pieces inspired by her passion for the human soul. She is fascinated by the connections between art and psychology. Their paintings and sculptural collages, meticulous in the use of color and textures, invite the viewer to dig into the layers of material hidden in these surfaces, in a poetic archeology.
She also creates wearable art collections of jewelry in which leftover fragments of her large sculptural encaustics are encased in resin, metal and leather. These leftovers are her precious stones and help her to orchestrate bold shapes in surprising angles, translating her viosion of a confidence-inspiring beauty.
Further acquaintance with Silvana’s unique biography and the sources/inspirations behind her oeuvre reveal an artist who has deftly marshaled passion, intellectual rigor, and solid technique to create a genuinely original body of work. Originally from São Paulo, Brazil, she was born in family in which psychology and art are blended. According to Silvana, the open spirit and the generosity of her parents, along with their creativity and intuition, awakened in her and her siblings the curiosity about people’s minds and their forms expression. Both her sisters in Brazil work in film (one is a director and the other film editor), one of them being also a practicing psychologist, as well as her brother and herself. Her work as a clinical psychologist and her background as an artist inspired her to explore in more depth those areas where art and academia, theory and practice converge. She was educated as a psychologist and also holds degrees in art therapy, art history and a master’s degree in fine arts.
She has explored a variety of art forms during her life. The work as a production designer in film and, later, video art, led to her being offered a fellowship to study art and design at New York University, which she had to decline in order to finish her psychology degree. Her favorite art form, though, has always been painting. When she was four years old her parents gave her a set of watercolors and an easel. Little did they realize the career they had set in motion, for with that easel she officially began her life as artist!
From a young age, she went to museums and galleries with her family and, according to Silvana, she can still recall the day her mother introduced her to an art book featuring works by the Italian Renascence master Raphael Sanzio: “Those images stroke me immediately”, says Silvana, “I asked my mother what that was and she told me: this is painting, my dear. From that moment on I fell totally in love with painting”.
At the age of eight, she took her first art classes with Bernardo Cid, a well-known Brazilian painter, a seminal experience that undoubtedly laid the groundwork for her future artistic endeavors. She continued with art workshops and courses throughout her youth. With art already such a big part of her life, by the time she was ready for college she pursued a degree in psychology. This choice grew out of her interest in the connections between fine art and behavior, especially the psychological dynamics behind memory and self-expression. After earning her degree in psychology, she worked in a clinical setting for many years while pursuing degrees in art therapy and art history.
At the time, in addition to showing her art works in art centers, she also taught art and art history. Since moving to the USA, she has established her studio in Minnesota and focused all her energy on painting. She is represented by galleries in multiple cities in the US and Brazil, has exhibited regularly in various venues throughout the US, EU and Brazil, and has received prestigious art awards in the US and Germany. Her work has also been featured in national and international art publications, in television art shows and her pieces are owned by collectors both in the US and Brazil.
Silvana’s nontraditional combinations of techniques brings further variety to her pieces through the use of custom-made colors and additional manipulations of the materials. With different mixtures of wax and resin, for example, she creates layers in her paintings intended to bring the layers of the psyche to life; the paintings’ textures are not merely symbolized, but are present on the canvas. The work is decidedly three-dimensional and demands a live experience—it is impossible to perceive the paintings’ rich textures by seeing them online or in print only.
The unique combination of elements Silvana LaCreta Ravena brings to her work — artistic, personal, and professional — gives her the credibility of an original. While each individual piece of hers certainly “speaks for itself,” when seen in the context of the artist’s background, ideas, and singular technique, it clearly gains a degree of vitality and significance that indicates the true measure of the work. From her first watercolor at age of four to the thesis she wrote for her last degree, her education, life experiences and her professional endeavors have been synthesized with her art practice, serving as its natural background. Adam Eisenstat, art writer, for Xanadu Gallery, AZ, USA).
https://www.silvanaravena.com/
www.silvanalacretaravena.com