Oriana
Impei
Lecturer in Sculpture and sculptor, born in Rome in 1966. She obtained a diploma in Sculpture from the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome in 1988. Having won a national competition in 1993, she initially taught at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna, and since 2002, she has been a lecturer in sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome. In addition to teaching Sculpture, she also teaches Marble and Hard Stone Techniques. The courses are held at the Campo Boario campus in Testaccio.
For thirty years, Impei has been creating her own stone works, working in the workshops of the Società del Travertino Romano and in the quarries in Tivoli.
As her expressive material, she favours Roman travertine, Lapis Tiburtinus, as it represents Rome’s characteristic stone and is therefore linked to the genius loci, and it complements her own artistic language, which is rooted in primordial organic forms, with a constant reference to the forms of life and the primal living being.
She has taken part in art exhibitions and stone sculpture symposia, winning prizes in various national and international competitions, and has created monumental stone sculptures.
She is invited to serve on the judging panels of sculpture competitions and has participated in exhibitions held in natural settings, such as Opera Bosco in Calcata, from 2006 to the present day.
She promotes the cultural events ‘Percorsi d’Arte nella Natura’ (Art Trails in Nature), which feature the participation of the best students from the sculpture course at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome, and in December 2021, she co-edited, together with the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome, the scientific publication ‘Percorsi d’arte nella natura – Proposte e tendenze nei parchi museo italiani’ (Art Trails in Nature – Proposals and Trends in Italian Museum Parks), published by Gangemi Editore and edited by Oriana Impei and Antonella Massa.
In the field of sacred art, for the 2000 Jubilee, together with her artist husband Matthias Omahen, she created the entire liturgical furnishings in Roman travertine for the new Regina Pacis Church in Anguillara Sabazia (Rome), and in 2007, she created the liturgical throne.
In the Municipality of Palombara Sabina, she created and directed the artistic production project ‘Percorso d’arte a Castiglione’ in collaboration with the ABA in Rome, which included an international sculpture symposium and the Coesione contemporary art exhibition at Castello Savelli in Palombara Sabina. Together with the Municipality, she has invited foreign art universities to participate in cultural exchanges, including the Universität der Künste Berlin and the ABA in Carrara in 2012, the Universidad Miguel Hernández in Elche, Spain, in 2017, and the Universidad Católica de Temuco in Chile in 2019.
She has taken part in Erasmus Lecturer exchanges, delivering seminars on contemporary sculpture parks in Italy, and has exhibited her work in solo exhibitions, including in 2006 at the Burg Giebichenstein Hochschule für Kunst und Design in Halle (Saale), Germany, and in 2015 at the Universidad Miguel Hernández in Altea, Spain.
She has exhibited in both group and solo exhibitions.
THREE-YEAR COURSE
The programme is characterised by a theoretical foundation, complemented by technical and practical experience in the creation of projects and scale models, life drawing from the female and male live model, the use of graphic drawings, and the study of the concepts of bas-relief, high relief and the sculpture in the round, as well as the study of individual sculptural works placed in different environments – natural, artificial and architectural – and the issues surrounding their integration into enclosed or open spaces.
Students will present their own three-dimensional work, setting it in a specific environment and choosing the materials to be used. Students will follow a path from the initial idea to the finished work, which, in addition to studying the traditional method of modelling using clay, will also cover the technique of armature and moulding, in order to create works on a 1:1 scale or in a reduced size, including site-specific works.
Visits to museums and exhibitions are planned, and, with the aid of video footage and image projections, students will be introduced to the work of contemporary artists who primarily create permanent and temporary outdoor installations.
A key component of the programme is a focus on contemporary sculpture in the context of the environment, the city and the landscape, as a preparatory step for the two-year programme.
The objective is to design and understand the location where the sculpture will be created.
Building on the experience gained with students in various artistic production projects, this year’s course once again includes the creation of sculptural works in stone and various other materials as part of the teaching projects.
The aim is to design and create sculptures and installations for a real space, following a course of study designed to create works of art by students that are in perfect harmony with their surroundings. For this reason, site visits and guided tours of the Roman travertine quarries and the local landscape are organised in order to consider potential locations for sculptural interventions, with a view to enhancing the cultural, archaeological and natural/environmental heritage of the area, where human intervention (in the ancient quarries and the new, disused ones) has transformed the landscape, giving rise to unexpected forms of expression which, through a new ‘interpretation’, can be re-evaluated and become a source of new design inspiration.
TWO-YEAR COURSE
The core programme is the same for all two-year courses; in particular, its aim is to enable students who have acquired aesthetic and theoretical-practical experience to specialise in the creation of projects and scale models, as well as individual sculptural works placed in different environments – natural, artificial and architectural – and their integration into enclosed or open spaces.
Students will present their own three-dimensional work, setting it in a specific environment, selecting the use of various materials, and following a process from the initial idea to the finished piece, to create works on a 1:1 scale or in a smaller size. Through the use of video footage and image projections, students will be introduced to works by contemporary artists who primarily create permanent and temporary outdoor installations.
Two-year course: ENVIRONMENTAL SCULPTURE AND LAPIS TIBURTINUS
The concept of Environmental Sculpture will be developed, with an exploration of contemporary sculpture parks in Italy and abroad, as a strand of artistic research that, in common with Art/Architecture/Sculpture, forms a unified whole with the natural landscape, making the Site the protagonist of a possible future. Cultural trips are organised, such as the visit to Burri’s Il Grande Cretto in Gibellina and the Fiumara d’Arte in Sicily (which took place in April 2019); further visits will be made to the Gori Collection Park and to contemporary sculpture parks in Italy.
The various aspects of Environmental Art, and in particular Environmental Sculpture and Sculpture as Public Art, will be identified, and issues related to the conservation of outdoor sculpture will be addressed, covering both perishable and synthetic materials and more durable materials such as stone.
Particular attention will be devoted to learning about travertine as an ancient stone of Rome.
Visits to modern and ancient quarries will be organised to identify potential sites for sculptural interventions. Workshops and ongoing artistic production projects in stone sculpture are organised, such as the Progetto Percorso d’Arte nel Giardino dei Cinque Sensi in Licenza in 2011, and in 2012 and 2017–2019, the Percorso d’Arte a Castiglione in Palombara Sabina (Province of Rome), as well as the recent exhibition ‘Punto di arrivo nel nuovo mondo’, held in the Municipality of Sant’Oreste Monte Soratte in July 2021.
Students will be asked to identify and propose potential locations for their own environmental art projects. This year, a project involving an intervention in the Lazio region is being offered once again.
The objective is to guide students towards a more specific and practical understanding of a method for designing a sculptural work in a real-world environment.
Two-year course in SCULPTURE AND PUBLIC AND ENVIRONMENTAL ART
Building on the programme described above, students will address issues related to public works competitions under the ‘2 per cent’ scheme, engage with public and private organisations, and prepare proposals for the submission of projects to municipal and private bodies. Students will participate in workshops, either as part of a consortium or under an agreement, to create large-scale works in various materials, including stone, wood, iron and others.
Bibliography
‘Dizionario dei nuovi paesaggisti’ by Pierluigi Nicolin and Francesco Repishti, SKIRA Editore, 2003.
Arte ambientale – Fattoria di Celle, Gori Collection, Gli Ori Publishers, 2009;
Arte Sella – The Contemporary Mountain, Silvana Editoriale, 2013;
Niki de Saint Phalle e il Giardino dei Tarocchi, Ed. Benteli, 2010; Benteli, 2010;
‘Campo del sole. Un’architettura di sculture a Tuoro’, edited by E. Crispolti, Tuoro sul Trasimeno, 3 vols.,, Milan 1986–1990;
”Immagini Simboliche’ by Ernst Gombrich, Studi sull’arte del Rinascimento, Einaudi, 1978;“Allegoria e migrazione dei simboli” by Rudolf Wittkower, Einaudi, 1987.
Two-year course in SCULPTURE AND NEW TECHNOLOGIES
Core programme as above, plus experience with new technologies for sculpture, from robotics to 3D, to be carried out at centres and workshops affiliated with the Academy; dedicated workshops will also enable students to create prototypes and sculptures using next-generation materials, from Land Art to Bio Art. Issues related to the recycling of materials, from paper to plastic, will be addressed, and students will experiment with artistic approaches ranging from the biological sciences to hybrid forms.
Reading list as above and core text
&’Dalla Land Art alla BioArte’, edited by Ivana Mulatero, PAV Parco d’Arte Vivente series, 2008 edition.
THREE-YEAR and TWO-YEAR COURSES
The fundamental objective of the programme is to contribute to the students’ general education by providing them with theoretical and technical-practical knowledge of marble and pietra dura working, with a view to highlighting the challenges and merits of these materials.
Understanding the technique plays an important role, as it enables us to explore new avenues of research. The course will cover the classification of the various types of marble and stone, with a particular focus on Roman marble and travertine and their use in antiquity and the contemporary world (essays will be required), as well as the technical characteristics and conservation issues of outdoor sculpture, the limitations of stability and the associated costs, in order to understand the real feasibility of creating a given work using these noble, ancient and yet contemporary materials.
Practical experience and knowledge of the materials, equipment, and the hand and power tools used in the work are of paramount importance in order to understand the real feasibility and execution of sculptures and art design objects, as well as works of urban art. The course will include practical exercises working from blocks and slabs, including roughing and finishing, and students will receive support in the realisation of the projects they have developed.
This experience, which is essential for students’ personal development, will take the form of a programme focusing on learning about and practising direct carving, which enables students to conceive and modify the sculpture as they work, before moving on to visualising the reproduction of a model using the compass technique, with a visit to relevant external studios and workshops.
As part of the course, students will analyse works by historical and contemporary artists who have used these materials, as well as other materials.
Particular emphasis will be placed on the historical aspect of the abundance of Roman travertine, the ancient ‘Lapis Tiburtinus’, in the local area, with a view to defining the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome’s course and encouraging agreements for potential sponsorship by public and private bodies and local consortium companies, with a tailored training programme for students and their entry into the world of work.
The objective is to conclude the course with a workshop held directly in an outdoor space. Throughout the year, guided tours and educational trips will be organised to the main quarry sites and marble sculpture workshops (Carrara, Pietrasanta and Tivoli).
‘La scultura raccontata da Rudolf Wittkower. Dall’antichità al Novecento’, Einaudi Saggi, 1985 and 1993.”Manuale di Tecniche della Scultura” by Salvatore Rizzuti, Casa Editrice Istituto Poligrafico Europeo, 2015.“La scultura in pietra”, by Cami Santamera, Editrice Il Castello, 2009.“Sulla pietra di Roma”, Edizioni Kappa, edited by L. Rattazzi, introduction by F. Moschini and P. Portoghesi, 1994.“Il Tempo, grande scultore” by Margherite Yourcenar, Einaudi, 1994; Il Novecento scolpito. Da Rodin a Picasso Da Rodin a Picasso’ (edited by A. M. Rivosecchi-Sette), De Luca Editori d’Arte, 2000.