Andreas Zampella Q&A
-Andreas, first of all, thanks for welcoming us here. I will repeat what I asked you a moment ago: how are you, right now?
- …and as I was telling you earlier, yeah, I’m feeling normal, spinning between good and bad, normal. It can always get worse and it can always get better, ahah. It surely is an intense moment but, how can I put it, in a way every moment in life is intense. Summer is intense, winter is intense. In the end every day becomes intense, at least the way I see it.
-We’d like to understand a bit more about your path. How did you end up here talking to us today?
- Look, how can I explain… I think I would have found myself here today in any way. I attended an art high-school in Salerno (I’m from Cava de’ Tirreni, about 15 km away), then I went to the Academy of Fine Arts in Naples. After that, I ended up in Milan for other reasons I won’t get into because it would be too complicated. But in any case, I’ve always drawn and painted since I was a child. At home there was always a very open mindset, an open environment. So to make a long story very short: here I am!
-Let’s come back to the present. In your new exhibition, opened on February 11, 2026 at Galleria Poggiali, Il cielo sopra Milano, you brought an alternative Milanese sky into the gallery space, to restore a night the city no longer allows us to see. We were there, and we’ve read some of your previous reflections before the vernissage, but we would like you to tell it again for us, maybe exploring themes you haven’t spoken about before.
- Yes. So, this work is a process. It’s an integral part of a path I’ve been carrying on for years; it’s more a logical consequence than an isolated idea. My “confusion,” if I can call it that, is the starting point of my work. From there many macro and micro themes emerge. They fuse, evolve, and at some point they give birth to something that takes form and becomes real. Il cielo sopra Milano is an experiment, a deepening of my thinking, a fragment of a larger discourse. The research behind it revolves around the term “natura morta”, my recurring question. In Italian we call it that, literally “Dead Nature.” It’s a closed term, like there’s a wall at the end of it. It doesn’t leave space for imagination. In Dutch, the language that coined it, it’s “stilleven,” which means “silent life” or “still life”, as in English. These terms open up much broader and more interesting interpretations. Starting from here, the exhibition talks about everything and nothing, because in the end… I like “talking” about everything and nothing. But maybe that’s precisely the role of art. There are macro and micro topics. If the macro is art, the micro is what you bring, your reading. Il cielo sopra Milano is also a sort of summary of many things I love: I like working with the idea of “controlled darkness,” I love stars. The title clearly references Wings of Desire (Editor's Note: “Il cielo sopra Berlino” is the film’s Italian title), with its angels who decide to become human. I reasoned in the opposite direction: the human part, materialised in objects produced by human beings, becoming celestial bodies. It’s about the human through its absence. That’s the core of still life. My work often revolves around the artificial and the natural at the same time, a dichotomy that applies to society too. The sun is a natural obligation. We’re obliged to daylight, and obliged to darkness at night. Artificial lighting imposes light on us, going against nature. I like to reflect on these things. Once, I designed a project where a streetlamp had a switch installed on it, so anyone could regulate the light themselves, creating an artificial nature guided by free will. Life, and my research, is a constant play of light and shadow. Everything exists only if its opposite exists. These reflections guide my practice, deciding what should exist and what shouldn’t. The objects applied to my artificial sky were collected from friends, from markets… everyday objects that become actors telling other stories.
-Talking about objects: in your works, everyday objects shift function and become suspended, almost scenographic presences. When you look at a common object, what needs to happen for you to decide it can enter your work and become an unconscious co-protagonist?
- The object is a fragment of life. In some way I have to live it, or have lived it. That’s how it enters my sphere. When you speak about scenography and co-protagonists, you’re giving me the perfect cue to mention a fundamental inspiration of mine: theatre and its rules. I experience my works as if they were actors on a stage. Some become protagonists, others co-protagonists, forming small self-sufficient ecosystems. Another field I investigate a lot is grammar. Periods, commas, applied in space. Space is what we live inside; it belongs to me as it belongs to everyone. In my case, it gets re-proposed on canvas or on whatever support I’m working with. Some paintings and objects become actual “verbs” in my imagination. They perform actions that influence how I interpret them. They enter that silent life, that still life I mentioned, which tells me that everything is alive, everything is moving, contrary to the literal Italian definition, “Dead Nature.” I attribute a soul to these objects. They are verbs. They come alive. They become companions. It’s a mantra of mine, a way to connect with them, and potentially for the viewer to absorb them and see them as companions too. It’s a process. It’s evolving. It’s all experimental. There’s no certainty of success.
-Since we also love words, and you mentioned grammar, would you expand on this fascination?
- I’ll try, but it’s not easy to define. A painting can be a poem, and an object can become a word. Everything can merge. But how do you explain a poem? The moment you translate it, it loses impact. My work is grammar, and is “writing” too. Think of the works I make using some “canovacci”, in Italian that word means both dishcloths and the structural outline of a theatrical piece whose development is left to actors’ improvisation. I think that some things need to be left as they are.
-Many of your works seem to require the viewer to move and find the right light to really “see” them. Do you consider the viewer during your process, or do you work purely for yourself?
- Of course I think about the viewer. If my work is like a writing, I have to put myself in the reader’s shoes. I need to attempt a universal language, readable, somehow understandable. In theatre, again, you think about the audience: will they laugh? Cry? But if you’re asking whether I create expecting to provoke a reaction, no. On that I’m free, luckily. Over the years my thinking about the people who might experience my art has changed. You grow and mature.
-Are there recurring patterns in your creative process, or is everything subject to change?
- There’s a lot of unconsciousness in what I do. My hand moves, it’s not controlled. The unconscious always surfaces. It’s like Alberto Giacometti trying to make “beautiful” things and ending up making only “ugly” ones, and the entire meaning of his work was there. I don’t have recurring patterns. I try to detach from what I’ve done before, constantly questioning myself. I like changing. I ask myself: if I change this, what goes on? One painting suggests another and a chain reaction happens. There’s no beginning or end. It’s a flow. Same in life. I change points of view often, to remain coherent with myself. In a way, I’m inconsistent to stay consistent! To answer simply: repetition and static situations cause me enormous suffering...
