Actually, I feel this specific way of influence has chosen me. I am happy I was able to follow the strong force that felt like fire inside me since an early age, to define it and use it as my personal contribution for a better world. I changed many countries, attended many schools and universities, met many radiant people who helped me find my way as a creative person.
We need to be honest, and strictly critical with our-selves; we should always try to improve in our profession and in everyday life. Education is endless, it is important to always be curious of life and to continue to learn, listen, and study.
In my professional and private live, after a long struggle, I succeed to achieve the status of oneness: unity of thought, feeling, belief, aim and actions. My private and professional life are one, they are overlapping, there are no vacations, and no weekends. I am always working and I am always dedicated to my family as a mother and wife. I am bringing my daughter everywhere with me, on my lectures and exhibitions. My husband is always present. My art and life are one. We found our formula out of the system so that we are free in any sense to do what we like and live for. It can be tough, but there are always priorities and satisfaction when you know you are living a life of purpose.
I believe that everybody has a purpose in his life and that the lucky ones are the individuals who have discovered it. If we want to be happy and appreciate our future, it is very important to take the important decisions today. Every step needs to be taken with the thought about your future goals and with an important question: “Is this really what we want and wish for?”
Keeping a balance life between family and work is the best recipe for happiness and satisfaction.
I knew deep within me that I was born as an artist, but somehow I did not see myself being in the commonalities of a typical artistic world. What I wanted to create was a balance between reality and imagination: the balance of art and life, the utopian way to make people’s life harmonious and beautiful. As I grow up in beautiful Yugoslavia during the unhappy times of a civil war, I passed a difficult road, trough many countries, to explore my inner-self, find a right way to express myself, and the purpose of my creativity and life. The only and the best way was and it is education. If I do not consider all the inner searching I did within me is only calculated from the academic time I had invested in, I would say it took me 17 years from studying art in Portugal, achieving master degree in architecture, to earning a Harvard certificate. Now, I have reached the point where I can use my experience and talent in an independent creative process and share my knowledge worldwide.
The hardest moments were when I needed to leave the people I loved and cared for: my family and my best friends. Emotions and affections are mostly important for me, but I realized that these individuals in my life can always be with me even if we are not physically in each other’s presence.
“Every step that I took brought me here” – this sentence was on the floor of the Milan airport. I can extend it with “and it was worth it”.
Today I live in Switzerland, already at my seventh year of working independently in my own studio and living my dream. My work embraces the synergy of various fields that I am interested in: art, architecture and fashion in theory and practice. I decided to use my theoretic and practical knowledge, my experience and my talent to create the foundation in whatever I decide to create and make the impact. Internet made the revolution we witnessed, we are closer than ever and connected more than ever and we should use it. Also, the interdisciplinary approach became a must. This is a perfect example of being at the right place, in the right time, being able to do realize what I have always wished and desired to do, and to be recognized, above all.
My first important personal achievement was to find my way: it was architecture, a very demanding union of art and technology. I become active as a woman in architecture. I reached a very high level, as this field is mostly reserved for men. (UnDesign Award; “40 Under 40”, The Plan Award finalist, etc.; many realized buildings, designs and lectures.)
Next important achievement: making success as a multidisciplinary artist and showing that creativity has no borders, languages or territories: top 12 Saatchi Artist of the year, exhibitions in museums and galleries worldwide. I made a carrier as a fashion designer, too, with my “Ana D'Apuzzo Collezzoni” in Switzerland and Japan. I am a lecturer at many universities and editor in the board of a few art and design magazines. I am happy to share my knowledge with students worldwide, to inspire them, and seeing a smile on their faces is my greatest award.
Today I am happy to go every year in Japan as an architecture-art-and-design lecturer, exhibiting my artworks and designs. For me Japan was always the synonym of perfection. With the Japanese “Iwate Art Project”, I witnessed the highest point of art purpose, how art can connect, inspire and evoke tears of happiness. The goal of this project is to help the recovery of areas in north Japan hit by the terrible earthquake in 2011. The highlight was my last year visit to an old Zen temple in Japan, meeting its master and speaking about change trough art. This year I will be honoured to hold my own art exhibition there, as the first woman who entered its Zen meditation hall after 800 years. I am happy to bring Change trough Art because “Zen is about Change” as the great Zen Master said, opening the door of this breath-taking place to all women and children.
My live was always keeping a balance between carrier and family. In the future, the most difficult will be the same task – keeping the balance. Women are strong, but very busy, we are carry a heavy burden, as working in creative fields very often means no time for family, because it is an endless competition.
My mother was my key example: a mechanical engineer working full time and taking care of 3 children, and she coped with it all perfectly well. The difficult times in my early life taught me the basis for everything: a healthy, happy family. It leads to a clear mind, stability, and then to everything else, including a successful carrier.
Family, as a foundation, is the most important factor for personal success and satisfaction in any field. We are not able to predict the future but we can see the purpose of our life by living each day filled with passion for the work that we like to do and the people we surround ourselves with.
I have also learned that no shortcuts are available, in order to fulfil your dream. A strong vision and discipline are required together with the happiness of doing the things that you love to do. Good and bad moments shall continuously be alternating, but it is important to always do your best, and never give up!
Ladies with energy, knowledge, experience and ideas need to step up and connect. They need to speak and be heard, they need to act and go out from the shadow. This forum is a perfect example how we should act. The positive energy will attract many like-minded souls on the same spiritual level and positive results will arrive very fast. One way is to understand and accept social media impact and use its power. It is a space where everyone has an opportunity to express himself or herself and focus on positive changes in general. The great advantage of this century is the new technology that provides rapid transportation, information, & communication. This resource makes everything much easier.
We should think about ourselves as citizens of the Earth, not of a city or a country. We need to connect, exchange ideas and react, in order to improve our lives.
It is important to support each other in every way, to talk and listen. This kind of conversation is very important when we arrive to the subject of balance between family and carrier. In this area, only women can understand other women. This is not a feminist statement; it is simply about the weight that only women can carry in life. We are facing the amazing strength that nature has given to us in order to be able to handle all kind of challenges.
It is important to try to pursue what we like, because life is too short for making compromises. We should also appreciate that we are living in a better time of equal rights and liberation for women.
We are not able to control our luck and we cannot change the times, but all the rest depends on us individually: our ambitions, our visions and, finally, our actions.
Traditional bio:
Ana D'Apuzzo is contemporary architect, artist and designer, currently in research of the connections between contemporary art, design, fashion and architecture in theory and practice, trough various media traditional, advanced: digital, oil on canvas, acrylic, watercolor, pastel, ink, trough combination of the techniques and disciplines. She currently lives and works between the two shores of Lago Maggiore in Switzerland and Japan. She opened her Studio d'arte e architettura six years ago in energizing artistic place Ascona, under the magic hill of Monte Verita meeting point for artists since 200 years. This space is her experimental, creative window, art saloon for creatives and art lovers where she organizes themed exhibitions and interdisciplinary events.
She enjoys interdisciplinary creative work where she can exchange and share knowledge, learn more and collaborate with other talented and passionate people: artists, musicians, designers, architects, scientists etc. Working in the fields of contemporary art, architecture, fashion and technology, she combines her skills to create engaging oil and acrylic paintings, paintings and graphics on cloth, watercolors on paper, digital prints on plexiglas and 3D videos and visualizations. Trough her work she explores the versatility of mediums, she plays with color, patterns, shapes and textures, creating captivating characters that shine through her canvases. Crown of this approach is series of lectures and workshops she held in past four years at Japanese art, design, fashion and architecture universities to motivate and inspire their students. Subject is always human body, architecture, art and fashion around it. She witnessed many times that trough her art and personal story she touched peoples hearts and bring smile to their faces.
Inspiration for her is everywhere: light, nature, science and brilliant people, as the scientist Nikola Tesla. Her goal is to create art that captures emotion. Trough all shapes of art that are appearing in her portfolio there is one common line: impressionism as art direction with a human as a central figure in her art and architecture esthetics influence. From art to the architecture and opposite the travel is exciting with very innovative results and with the freedom as the key for her endless creativity and inspiration.
In her newest series of oil paintings she explores the butterfly effect phenomenon, the concept that small causes can have large effects. Her painting style is very innovative, never seen before and her unique fashion collection is inspired with her paintings and 3D technologies.
- The painting style of Ana D'Apuzzo remains astonishingly awe-inspiring, partly due to her bewildering ability to create the impression of aquarelle with oil paint. - Art en Swiss Magazine
Awards and Exhibitions Selection:
D'Apuzzo is finalist of the '40 Under 40' Award 2017 for young creatives in Hong Kong, she is featured artist of the month of the prestige Saatchi Art Gallery in 2016 and the international community Cultur Go from Switzerland in 2017, The Plan Award 2015 finalist for architecture in Milan, Italy; UnDesign Award 2013 winner for painting in Hong Kong; Expo Milan - Perspective 2015 - MiCo, Milan, Italy, collective architecture exhibition; finalist at "Create the Void", Guggenheim Museum, New York for the art installation project; 2014: Shelter/AAF II, MORIJYOBI, Morioka, Japan, workshop and installation in art, fashion and architecture field; Art Takes Miami, SCOPE 2014, Miami Beach, FL, USA, collective art exhibition; 2013 Snap to Grid, LACDA, Los Angeles and Sketch., Fordham University Center Gallery, New York collective architecture exh; 2012: 3D Body Architecture², AIST Waterfront, Tokyo, Japan, digital art solo exhibition; 2011: Drawing Connections, Siena Art Institute, Italy, collective art exhibition and first prize at "Pittori in piazza a Caviano", APST, Switzerland in 2010 etc.
She is member of the prestige „Iwate Art Project“ member since 2013. As a visual artist with interdisciplinary subject of work she is invited to share knowledge from the fields of art, architecture and design trough workshops, lectures in various universities and public talks and realize art, architecture and design exhibitions from 2013 till 2020 in various cities in Japan.
D'Apuzzo recently completed her study on art and architecture imagination subject and received Certificate of Achievement from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design under professor professor Kenneth Michael Hays, Eliot Noyes Professor of Architectural Theory.
In 2004 she completed her master in architecture at The Technical University of Novi Sad. She moved to Lisbon in 1998 to study art at ARCO Academy. She is Swiss artist and architect, born in former Yugoslavia in 1978. As an artist and architect she is exploring the dimensions of creativity and the state of contemporary being through paintings and art installations which are result of combination of the classical techniques and computer projecting.
