I am a painter and an illustrator.

Illustrations are a different thing. For the moment I would write about paintings, because it's with
paintings that I'm free to do anything I feel, and anything I desire.
I like to draw my world, which is certainly more soft and light and gentle compared to the real one; it's an
utopia. It's a world that is able to be in armony with itself. The humans are not so much present in it, the
armony is visible among the nature and the animals. Sometimes in my paintings there are special kind of
humans, winged humans, they have a different sensibility and because of that they have wings.
I try to add a little lightness to this weighty world, that I don't like too much as it is.
The lightness of my world is often similar to what I read. Sometimes I feel a particular feeling, as if what I
read could be a precise part of me, and in such a case it's inevitable that some words melt in my colours,
sometimes I want it, sometimes I don't know that it's happening, but it happens! I like so much when the
words of a book appear so vivid in my mind, and suddenly my soul is squeezed by these words and all is so
wonderful that I want to paint it. It's not so easy, to translate this kind of mood, because the idea that you
have built in your mind is too wonderful, but there's a push that tell you that you must do it! Other time
it's not so comprehensible, nor when happens neither the way in which these words take shape.
I like the childhood world. And I think it's very noticeable.
I like the childhood way to tell things, that isn't simple and superficial, but it is deep and goes straight to
the heart, as a thin dressmaker's pin.
The childhood is more "real", despite what most of the grown people think. The world of the children is
still linked to the primeval world, they feel better the things that are important, and often children are
hurt from the grown people that consider these only as foolish things. The grown people have slowly lost
the link with the earth and often they live in an unreal world, that seems real only because all the humans
think that it is so... I like to be more child than adult.
When I start painting, sometimes It happens that the image is all in my head, some other times the image
take life one piece at once, during the work. I always give a lot of importance to colours. It happens that
colours get more important than the subject! Colours can give all the feelings a painting needs.
I like using different techniques and supports, acrylics on panel, on paper, on grey cardboard or mix them
with coloured pencils, or watercolours. Expecially in this last period, I like a lot doing this kind of
mixtures, it's very satisfying.
So I draw, and I paint and I draw, and meanwhile I hold my cats on my knees.. Now that I live in Zurich, I
have the woods outside my window and this is very nice because the trees can give the right breath, to
work. All the nature is a wonderful breath to take, every moment, for working and for living.

Simona Dimitri . illusimi . www.illusimi.com / illusimi.blogspot.com / info@illusimi.com