Since her childhood, the Italian artist Roberta Ponte liked to play with colors, especially painting with markers and watercolors. Growing up, her drawings started to be influenced by fantasy art and she created her first jewelry collection using recycled cardboard which she hand-painted.
She discovered polymer clay some years ago and it was a real game-changer as she started to develop a new personal style. Her creations combine woman faces, animals or abstract shapes with intricate lines and play of colors.
Once she discovered polymer clay, Roberta has been approaching the world around her with different eyes, trying to find a connection between what she sees and this amazing material. Even when at the grocery store she’s looking at the items around thinking how they could be used with it. “Each artist is taking inspiration from the surrounding environment,” she says.
“Nature is full of free resources ready to use: color palette, shapes, animals, trees and so on. I love using natural color combinations, they’re already perfectly mixed.”
We are surrounded by art in all its forms. Famous artists from the past left us thousands of artworks as do the contemporary ones. There are a lot of different styles, but they all have a common point: they’re generating emotions. “Sometimes,” the artist mentions, “when I am walking in town, I spend time admiring murals and graffiti because they’re giving me powerful emotions with all those brilliant colors mixed together. Color is for me very important and it pushed me towards abstract art, especially Kandinsky-inspired works. His beautiful way to mix colors and lines had a big imprint to my work: my style took a totally new direction. For the first time, I have experimented with how to mix colors and lines without thinking too much about the result."
"Of course, it’s very important to keep an eye on the color wheel,
but sometimes it’s fun just to let your hands go.”
When the artist starts working she loves to have in front of her a huge amount of color shades and she often uses them all. To create a piece, the process starts with a sketch in a notebook then the design is transferred to the clay. Sometimes what is on the paper is not working on clay so she lets her creativity flow without any scheme. When sketching a piece, Roberta does not have in mind how it will look at the end or which colors will be added. The creative process is a constant flow and she switches off her mind as much as she can, so everything comes natural and easy.
“Most of my work is inspired by woman figures and shapes,” unfolds Roberta, “but I also like to create abstract pieces full of colors because...
Abstract art is the easiest to take inspiration from, as you can mix together different styles and colors and have, in the end, a wonderful result.”
To get more inspiration, the Italian artist loves to take classes with famous artists. “Even if their styles are so different from mine,” she mentions, “I can always learn something to improve my personal one. Polymer clay is a very versatile material, you can almost do whatever you want with it, just let go and keep on creating: emotions are at the bottom of everything, let them flow and they’ll be your huge font of inspiration.”
