THE FUTURE IS FICKLE: A FALSE PROMISE.
Vittoria Cugno (b.2001) is an emerging Melbourne-based artist who specialises in oil figurative paintings. Her Honours research project formed as a dedication to the early passing of her father. She learned that our futures are not promised and that the way we spend our time is precious. Her research aims to give agency to fleeting, everyday moments as a response to the productionist pressures of capitalism and neoliberalism. Her project involves taking snapshots of candid, everyday interactions and dedicating time and labour to turn them into large-scale oil paintings. Vittoria’s paintings are representational, each using dominant and heightened colour to convey a mood and feeling. The combination of colour and energetic brushstrokes elicits an affective response in the viewer that highlights the beauty of the quotidian. Each painting includes figures informally interacting with each other or their environment in moments of leisure to emphasise that these often-forgotten moments are as important as time at work. Vittoria rejects the idea that we live to work or that only moments of productivity are worth remembering, and she hopes her paintings facilitate a shift in others’ perception towards recognising that everyday moments are precious.
