toronto CANADA

suckerPUNCH: Describe your project.
Nicholas DI GENOVA: My artistic practice revolves around concepts utilizing imagery from the natural world, informed by my affinity for both science and mythology.

My work often focuses on re-visualizations of primordial deities and supernatural creatures, inspired by stories passed along over generations, from major world religions to regional folklore. These creatures- these bloodthirsty minotaurs lurking in the seemingly endless labyrinths, these honey-tongued serpents preying on the innocent, these immortal super-humans residing in lofty realms unreachable by mortals- these entities are the most poignant representations of our deepest fears and aspirations as a human species. It has always been my goal to document these creatures that inhabit the depths of the human psyche as meticulously as John Audubon documented the birds of North America.

sP: What or who influenced this project?:
NDG: Growing up and during my first decade or so working as an artist, the artists I loved were all very graphic and linear and always drawing based. Jamiyla Lowe, Zak Smith, Tyler Bright Hilton and Shawn Cheng always topped that list, artists that either make comics or are clearly inspired by comics. While I still love these artists, over the last few years I’ve also come to appreciate looser far less linear painters, and since I’ve started working with oils I’ve been looking at artists doing big messy work, Matt Bahen, Megan McCabe and Allison Schulnik are some of my favourites.

sP: What were you reading/listening to/watching while developing this project?:
NDG: This project took about two years to complete, and when I started out I had literally zero experience making dioramas, so basically I spent two years watching every how to video I could find on the internet, and every dvd I could order, and reading every book or article I could find. I knew I wanted the diorama to look well made and knew that I had no experience, so for those two years I basically just absorbed every lesson that I could in my spare time and focused only on that. While actually working on the piece, I listened to a ton of audiobooks, usually either light non-fiction stuff based on zoology or history, or really bad but fun epic fantasy stuff, and probably every Haruki Murakami book he’s written.

sP: Whose work is currently on your radar?:
NDG: I think I just had these great childhood memories of seeing miniature villages as a kid that really stuck with me, and a point came in my professional career where I just felt like I needed a break from drawing so I decided to spend some time on this thing that seemed fun and interesting. There was a place an hour away from my home when I was a kid called Cullen Gardens that I remember my parents taking me to, this sprawling outdoor miniature villiage, and I think that memory just sorta stuck with me and was always in the back of my mind as something I could try. When I felt burnt out with drawing I decided to just go for it.

Photography credits: Dan JOSEPH COHEN

http://www.nicholasdigenova.com/