Rosso Emerald Crimson

The realism in Rosso portraits with her masterful blend and technique is reminiscent of the skill of a Gustave Courbet or Thomas Eakins painting emerging from her abstract expressionism as she merges her skills in evoking a mood as well as depicting the refinement of the character of the person in her portraits. Her colours are vivid and bold and the portraits have refined elegance, reminiscent of the vintage illustrative Vogue covers in the 1930’s. Her attention to the style and beauty of the image she paints, that her work has been featured on the covers of legendary fashion magazines, including Arena and Vogue India. Her portraits reveal not only the sentiment of the character that unfolds itself out of the quagmire of abstraction but further reveals the subtle nuances of character, mood and the intricacies of good taste, natural beauty and but also narratives that hold her own place in her heart. She explains that she paints the richness and complexities of female emotions, how our biology as women with the influx of hormonal changes can inadvertently take over our lives, and how she titles her artworks accordingly. Born in Sicily she describes her experience of island life cut off from the rest of the world, and her natural isolation as she would sit and watch, yearning to travel and experience the world, her ambition and education that would lead her to leave the island, and how this reflects in the vitality of the colourful depictions of her portraits. Including the bold rebellion that she reflects in earlier self portraits, with intricate details depicting her experiences of Motherhood and the LBGT community that also gently simmers in her portraits.

I had been planning to meet Rosso Emerald Crimson for an interview for some time, following and admiring her work and technique for many months, and then suddenly it all came together rather quickly. Rosso recently moved with her family to live in Oxford having spent 25 years in London, mainly Stoke Newington, and she describes the heart wrench to move away. But in essence, sees the benefits of the space they now have acquired, and the cost-effectiveness of it. Gradually meeting and making friends mostly with her yoga classes.  We go back to the beginning of her journey into the art world and the start, her childhood growing up in Sicily, and she smiles politely at my oohs and wows, as I have always wanted to visit the island, the cinematic story of the Godfather and the romanticism of how the island was portrayed. However, she gives me her realistic version of how islanders essentially are cut off from the rest of the world. She describes their social identity and how it differs from what we see as tourists, which is not what an islander experiences, Rosso explains. She expresses her feelings about growing up within a large family of siblings and cousins, all of them playing together, and her parents trying to force her to join, whereas she was more interested in drawing and being more comfortable on her own. Describing how her family couldn’t understand her, except her aunt, who was a principal in a school, who spent time home-schooling her. She recalls how everyone at school knew she was good at art, but her parents said no to art school. She was 20 when she left Sicily, with one suitcase a degree and €500.00.

Born in 1978, she recalls watching animation as a child “Of all these little heroines, girls, powerful girls who had the most amazing story, and they were all ending up in London. So I know for sure that the only reason why I’m in London and why I spent more than half my life here, London was implemented in my head.” She was a bit of a rebel, she ended up going to a grammar school and studying European languages, this was her way out if she was going to leave the island. At 17 determined to leave the “The Island” she tells me, she went on to study politics and international relations. This enabled her to travel with the Erasmus program, an EU support program for international learning and mobility. This enabled her to receive a scholarship in Politicks and enrol in the University of Canterbury, this was combined with a sociology degree.  She always had a keen interest in human psychology she explains. Having spent all her savings whilst a student and her desire for economic freedom, she studied marketing and then started working for a small advertising agency, “My boss loved me and invested in my further education, in digital marketing it was the time when Facebook had just been founded”.

At 30 she decided to change everything and took a gap year, and this is when she met her partner, “He was the one who nudged me” he took her to festivals and introduced her to life-drawing events. She describes how she had never heard of this, and how surprised she was to learn about life drawing. However this helped her reconnect with her past, this motivated her ambitions. I asked Rosso if she reconnected with her raw talent, she emphasised that she did train a lot to learn how to do this, as talent is very raw, but to pull it out is hard work she explains. “The life drawing classes were responding with me and making me happy.” He partner was modelling and she created some very raw authentic portraits of him. She was ahead of her vision, and to how it could be transferred “You have a final vision you cannot control,” she explains. Russo started enrolling in community college. And became interested in painting and drawing urban architecture or landscapes, although ultimately her aspiration was portraits, but she wasn’t sure how to get there. However, it all began with St Paul’s Cathedral, and her urban landscapes with the cathedral, when she would stand outside St Paul’s with her easel, painting urban landscapes of St Paul’s, then exhibit her works along the Millennium Bridge. It was her gallery, Russo exclaims, and how she sold out, her partner continued this enterprise with her “Many tourists are interested to watch an artist at work” and how she was able at the time to freely exhibit her artworks and sell them, and on the back of her artworks she had her business cards. This was the beginning, her partner was so enthusiastic that this was her future. Then they made prints of her paintings and sold them, and everyone was encouraging that her work should be in a gallery. “It wasn’t easy, it was incremental” She wanted to explore something else other than selling art on a bridge.

She describes her partner like her coach and how they worked together, he was DJing and she as an artist, however, Rosso explains how she became increasingly lost, and was stuck with technique. She decided to go back to advertising, for economic freedom, she explains however her partner encouraged her not to give up. It was when she stumbled upon an exhibition by artist Luca Indraccolo, “I hadn’t seen that style before, and the artist was running a workshop and  I enrolled, and the doors opened” she exclaims. “It was very expensive,” she tells me, however, she did five workshops with him, and believes most of what she became is through him. Then she became pregnant and had a baby girl, as a mother she couldn’t enrol in the academy full time but continued her workshops every three months. By now she knew what she wanted to paint, and she painted everything around her life, exquisite self-portraits as her role as a mother. After four years she felt she had nothing else to say, and didn’t want to force it. “You get to know something and the expectation comes in”. She continued with her workshops and painting in her studio, keeping the baby away from the fumes as much as she could, and the proximity of the demands of a young infant and then as her daughter became older it got easier ” The way everything was arranged was very artistic” she smiles.

It took a whole spectrum to figure out her voice, and took her longer to get what she wanted as an artist she explains, struggling to settle on one thing, “Creativity must come from the inside, if you follow other artist’s input you will crash” she explains. At the time she was struggling and considered going back to corporate, and then Covid happened and it forced her back into the studio, without any pressure, “I found space to explore when the world was quiet” and she pulled out her portraits again,”Pure portraits without any elements in the background”. She didn’t need to complicate, “You can be simple and relevant with the power to communicate without dictating”. As our chat draws to a close, I enjoy asking random questions, when I ask Rosso what or who inspires her art, she looks at me quizzically, “That’s really hard” and then she pauses, “Feelings!” she exclaims. “My portraits are always metaphors for different feelings we go through, especially when we have one of those days” she emphasises. The we talk about who is her favourite artist, Paula Rego “I love the rawness of her paintings”.  I asked her one of my favourite questions, what do you consider perfection? “Perfection is when everything is in harmony, when something needs to be felt and not explained”. What are the factors that would allow you to love an artwork “Harmony!” If she could have any artwork which one would she have “A painting by Rembrandt, The Girl at a Window” she would want that piece. 

Interview: Antoinette Haselhorst