Samy Sfoggia is a visual artist who works with photography and drawing. Her work is quite dark. Samy likes to manipulate photographs, sometimes with colours, sometimes with objects. Every pieces starts with an emotion.
KALTBLUT: When did you start photography?
Samy: I think it was around 2011 when I was studying Art at university. There I discovered that I like to spend hours in the lab rather than shooting. I really like the process of developing the film, enlarge my photos or scan the negatives. Everything happens so fast nowadays and it is amazing when you feel as if time stopped when you are in a darkroom.
KALTBLUT: How did you make your way to do collages?
Samy: I use photography as a work material, but my artwork is not limited to this medium. My images are captured with an old film camera (a Zorki-C model – c.1953) and I shoot primarily with black and white negative film. I scan the film, edit the frames digitally and then I print the images, draw on the paper with knife and oil paint and scan the photos again. After, I print the images on appropriate paper and size. In other words, my artwork is as a long process.
KALTBLUT: What is your favourite Medium to use?
Samy: 35mm b&w film at ISO 400.
KALTBLUT: There is something really dark in your work – obviously. What inspires you the most?
Samy: I am influenced by a lot of things. I tend to internalize stories from books and movies, for example. I like the movies of David Lynch; the books of Franz Kafka and of the totally unknown Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky; the photographic work of Tono Stano. I seek inspiration too on the nightmares I have every night.
KALTBLUT: How you support yourself as an artist?
Samy: I don’t… I work as Photographic Lab Technician.
KALTBLUT: How is your creative process when you start a new piece?
Samy: I try to express my thoughts through images, so it is like trying to express the chaos. The starting point of my work is always very personal; it’s how I feel about something. The image will appear slowly as I will juxtaposing the elements seem to contradict each other.
KALTBLUT: What are you working on at the moment?
Samy: At the moment I am inserting objects like pins and nails in printed photos. Thus the image becomes a 3D object. That has been interesting. Lately I have been drawing a lot too. I frequently like to draw using photos as reference.
Interview by Nicolas Simoneau
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