Nora Venturelli, Body of Work

Nora Venturelli has worked hard to hone her skills of drawing and painting the human figure.  She has a passion that is unmatched for drawing/painting, encouraging and teaching the study of the human form.  I’ve had the pleasure of seeing her work evolve over the past 25 years that I’ve known her and I’ve also been lucky enough to take a workshop from her.  I remember her showing images in the workshop of figure drawings by artists I’d never heard of.  I remember thinking she was a genius. She blew me away!  

I asked her to respond to a few questions for our blog.  The brief interview follows.

1. Do you remember the first time you drew the figure and what you were thinking after the session when you looked at your drawings?

NV: I remember the first time I had to draw a nude male figure, I was about 16yrs old, I hid behind my easel until I couldn’t anymore, so I started to draw and that was it, cured for life!   I don’t remember the quality of my drawing …

2. Knowing that figure drawing is a requirement for most of us who go to art school, what was it about the figure that kept you coming back to study it more?

NV: The complexity of it and the challenge of coming up with something personal.  It seems like we all go through the same drill and we work so similarly in school….so I was wondering how I could come up with an approach where people would come up to me and say, “I recognize your work.”  I find that I am in a continuous search for my identity as an artist.  It keeps me painting the figure one more time, and another time…. 

3. Tell us about your decision to show your pieces ‘salon style’ in your new show.

NV: I haven’t had the time to work on bigger pieces these past two years.  Therefore, I decided to show what I had been doing since my last solo at the gallery. Most of the work in this show is the result of short poses during weekly 3-hour sessions.

4. You are equally versatile in capturing the figure in oil, ink and watercolor.  Could you explain a bit about your approach to drawing the figure and painting the figure and how those approaches are similar or different?

NV: I think that my approach to either is that I draw with no matter what material I am holding, be it a charcoal stick, a sharpie or a brush – the painting happens as the work develops.  I look at light and shadow shapes, and then I start to model the figure.  It is difficult for me to draw the line between when a painting becomes a drawing and a drawing becomes a painting.

5. Building on that last question, what are your goals in a figurative oil painting, versus your goals in a figure drawing. 

NV: I don’t think I have a different goal between one or the other. I ultimately want to create a “strong painting” and/or a “strong drawing”  –  when all the complexities of good design come together to compose the perfect harmony.

6. Lastly, of the pieces you have on exhibit, which are a few of your favorites and, briefly, why?

NV: I don’t have a favorite, it’s like asking a mother which is your favorite child!