Ninu Nina Artist Interviews

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CONCETTA ANTICO

Ninu Nina

To be able to see 100 Million Colours. Today we meet with fine artist and tetrachromat Concetta Antico

From a very young age the world was a magical place to be de-mystified. I could understand it more fully by portraying it with oils on canvas. I was always captivated by the beauty surrounding me, the earthly visions I saw, and painting them helped me to understand it all at a deeper level.

Growing up in the wild nature of Australia, I exuded a longing to go walkabout! Right after college my wanderlust led me to the west coast of the USA, where My fine art career blossomed under the eucalyptus bowers of sunny San Diego, where I ran my atelier and gallery The Salon of Art until 2019. Like a migrating bird, I now have the joy of living the bohemian artistic life in seasonal flight.


Thank you for joining us today Concetta, pls share with us your greatest inspirations or influences?

My greatest inspiration comes from Mother Nature. She is the ultimate artist and I bow to her creativity and beauty. I am humbled to portray her. I am further significantly influenced by the long history of struggle by women in the arts. For so long women painters have worked to earn their place in the art world and have produced an oeuvre of work that has been mostly unrewarded. The revelations of color, light and bold brushwork employed by these Impressionist ladies and others inspires me still. I strive to be in their good artistic company.  I honor the works of Morisot, Coppedge, Olley Gonzalez, Botke, Schuster, and so many more. 

As a Tetrachromat, you can see 100 million colors due to a fourth color receptor, far beyond what the average person can see. How does this impact your life and work? 

Color is my mantra and my muse. I cannot act without a nod to the colors I am immersed in daily. I cannot escape the truth of what I can see. Color compels me to make the choices I make and the actions I take.  It inspires me to be creative and to share what I can see with others through my work. Color is the conductor of my life, and underlies the passion I have for every aspect of my existence. 

What do you hope viewers gain from the unique ways you see the world? 

I hope that my work will inspire others to slow down and look much more closely at the world around them as there truly is so much more to see. Those with regular vision are capable of seeing much more, too. Of course, not to the 100 million color level of a tetrachromat, but surely with training and mindfulness their potential is up to 1 million colors, and that’s a lot. The average person is not exercising their visual right to enjoy more color. 

By opening the window to a vista of more true colors through my art, my wish is that I will inspire others to revere our planet and thereby make added efforts to save it. We can understand and appreciate more if we can see more. The divine gift of seeing more color will surely open our eyes and then our hearts. 

Tell us a bit about your creative process? 

My creative process is a very emotional one. All my paintings are captured in one sitting. I use a palette methodology which allows me to create many more nuances of color. I find that oils give me the flexibility to create a myriad of color with their fluidity. I work in the alla prima process which produces the mosaic-filled happenstance magic I can see as I apply it poetically on canvas. I never return to my canvases; they are an intuitive and technical path I follow to an expected end.

What inspires you to create your paintings that are more cosmic-focused? 

I love the unknown. We came from the stars, didn’t we? The vastness of the universe is a fantastical world which we strive to see, understand and explain. The mystery is spellbinding and the beauty we can find by “looking up” provides another realm yet to be explored. As I said, I have always had wanderlust and the universe has yet to be explored in a way that we can understand. As we move further into the space age, it occurred to me that fine art should too. Not long ago, I was contacted by a USA astrological society and asked to speak to their members about the colors I can see in the images NASA provides from outer space. They were fascinated to hear me explain the intricate colors I could see in a nebula, or a galaxy. It was then I fully confirmed that my 100 million color journey needed to expand from this earthly realm to the cosmic one as it also expands.

What does well-being mean to you? 

Well-being means honoring the choices which will support the best way forward for my life.  It also underscores being in tune with myself and my essence. Nurturing my body and mind holistically and being true to my energy levels is critical, too. Listening to them and to my spirit keeps me in check. Ultimately, without art in my life my well-being suffers very much. During the recent pandemic, I found my soul and inspiration suffered greatly. They were oppressed on a variety of levels and so too was my sense of purpose and my balance. Well-being encompasses many aspects which together harmonize to bring the total me into tune.

What is next for you? 

What is not next for me! I feel unleashed after lockdowns and I am embarking on many new platforms. This includes an upcoming exhibition and fundraiser with the nonprofit Hospitality House in San Francisco that I’ll be participating in this June.  At this juncture in my life, my primary focuses are to enrich others, my quest being an even more altruistic one now. I have taken on a few new charities which are aligned with my artistic visions and missions and I wish to paint more and explore and share the many more colors I can see with others through my art. After all, this is why I am here and have been given this gift.