**[Francesca Borgo](https://www.cohart.com/francescaborgo.art/profile)** is a self-taught artist whose work delves into the dynamic interplay between natural elements and human resilience. Inspired by waves, clouds, mountains, and streams, she sees these forms as metaphors for personal growth, challenges, and transformation. Sand, a recurring material in her paintings, grounds her work and reflects her deep connection to the earth. Previously a brain science researcher and a sports psychologist for professional athletes, Francesca’s shift to art has marked a powerful chapter in her life. She lives in Italy, but her work is shown frequently in the United States.

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##### Can you describe your artistic process? What materials and techniques do you typically use?

I mostly use acrylic colors, but I also love metal pigments, to play with reflections, or wax and oil pastels for final highlights in certain instances. I’m very drawn by everything that has a tactile quality and for this reason I love to use sand to create a subtle texture that is unevenly distributed on the canvas surface.  

The process goes from total absence of control to very detailed and controlled brushstrokes. I start spreading the sand on the canvas, moving it with water so that it gets certain flowing shapes. After it dries up, I start with very diluted layers of acrylic color, almost as if it were watercolor. This allows the pigments to interact with sand that grabs and breaks them. Basically I have very little control on this part of the process and I truly enjoy it. 

Layer after layer, the painting background emerges and I start using progressively less diluted color, to define the waves, clouds, mountains, streams and flows that I see in the painting. This process of emphasizing the flowing forms is a moment of great ‘empowerment’ I’d say. There’s this idea that I follow the flow suggested by the canvas, and at the same time I outline what is more significant for me. 

Only in the last stages I use very thick color to highlight specific areas, or even pearlescent or metal pigments, oil or wax pastels,. Then it’s the time for subtle color veiling: somehow to swell the seas, give full body to the mountains… That’s when I feel I’m close to the end and the painting is almost finished.

##### What emotions do you experience when creating your art, and how do they influence the final piece?

To me, painting is a two-face emotional experience. 

On one hand, it puts me in a very special detached mental state: there’s timelessness, I have no real awareness of what happens around me. It’s all about spotting in the canvas and outlining with the brushes the ebbs and flows of the rhythms and the flows I see. In those moments I feel that I’m exactly where I want to be - into my very own skin, breathing. There are no explanations, no justifications, no negotiations: it’s just me. 

On the other hand, there are moments in which mounds of memories resurface and I dialogue with people in my head. There’s a lot of chaos there :) It’s a dialogue in which I try to define myself, to see and retrace my own story, to find courage by remembering other people’s lives, family, acquaintances: some of them are not here anymore. It’s like a meeting with all the people that, for the good and the bad, also contribute to defining who I am today. That also finds its way into the painting, somehow: it’s in all the roughness and raw areas that I leave almost untouched by color, and also in the subtle veiling at the very end of the painting process. 

Emotions can vary a lot, from pure joy to nostalgia, rage, calmness, pride, sorrow, confidence… It's chaos actually, and the waves are my way to find balance in the midst of it. 

##### What is your approach to experimenting with new techniques or styles?

I love to experiment and test new aspects of the technique and I’m going more decisively towards mixed media, but in a subtle way. The main goal for the future months is to see how metal pigments and sand can work together: it would be a great way to check how earthy elements can help shape a painting and reduce the ‘amount’ of acrylic color. It’s a technical development but it’s also connected to an emphasis on environment  that I’d like to be evident in my works. I’d also love to use paper in my paintings, as I have tested in some work in the past. The main challenge by changing the textural elements is to keep that soothing mood and flow that I try to give to all paintings. I invariably feel I need ‘that peace’, at least at the end of the journey…

##### Can you describe a turning point in your artistic career that significantly impacted your work?

I believe it’s been at the very beginning, when painting became my way of expression and my job, from just being the hobby of an entire life. Around 10 years ago I was ill for a while, underwent surgery and had to stay at home for weeks. I had an old painting at home, still unfinished and started working on it. That feeling of gesso and colors on my hand, the shapes I was creating, the textures, all helped me feel I could be again into my own body, that I was able to ‘own’ it again, despite that sense of fragility that the illness gave to me. 

There’s also another significant moment: two-three years ago I accepted the commission of two very large paintings that are now in Australia. To me those were the largest-biggest I have ever made. It’s been a fantastic challenge and that experience drove me to work on large sizes more and more. It’s a completely different painting experience for me, deeply connected to body action/movement, and I totally love it. It’s also connected to a more mature approach to the aesthetic configuration and to stretching the limits of the technique - I have the confidence that I can artistically manage more, better, larger… Somehow, it’s also related to the idea that waves don’t stop at the end of the canvas right? So I want that canvas larger and larger now :D

##### Has your cultural background influenced your artistic practice?

Since I was kid, I always loved art but this was basically ‘my secret thing’. My grandfather was a musician, but everyone else treated that part of his life as ‘that crazy thing about him’. So I learned to keep my daily drawing and painting to myself. My true influences have been my teachers, especially in high school where I studied humanities, ancient art and literature. Going to museums during school trips always put me in a frenzy-kind of mental state - I felt so strange with respect to my friends! After that, I did completely different things, studying and working in psychology and brain sciences, and then as a sport psychologist. Only very recently, in my forties, my secret hobby became a serious thing. It happened by chance, because I was blocked at home after a surgery. I started painting again, and my hands on the canvas gave me a special mix of emotions that I could not avoid listening to anymore. And here I am, with half my home converted to a studio :)   

##### Do you have any rituals or routines that help you get into a creative mindset?

Not really. The only thing I do in the studio, after changing into my dirty working clothes, is to switch on the music - from classical to rock, there’s no limit :) 

##### How do you perceive the relationship between art and mental health?

I think art speaks a wordless language that may touch very special corners in people’s mind and soul. It’s like that every time I’m in front of a painting, walk around a sculpture or an installation, listen to music, read poetry… I love to think art stirs our humanity, making us sensitive to matters that are sometimes difficult to tap. It puts us in contact with our own fragility, fears, aspirations, doubts, dreams. It uncovers what we find risky, out of our reach, dissolving, but also what makes us full of courage, determined. In a word, I think it’s about being authentic  -or finding that authenticity, carving and shaping it, changing or letting go when it’s time… - and I think this is very much related to what seeking mental health is about.

##### Are there any symbols, colors, or motifs that recur in your work, and what significance do they hold for you?

Waves - that are often merged into clouds, mountains, water streams, and mist - are often recurring in my work. Through them, I invite viewers to find themselves in the ebb and flow of these imaginary abstract landscapes. Each piece is a reminder that, just like the clouds shifting across the sky or the waves reshaping the shore, we too are constantly adapting, evolving, and finding new ways to thrive. It is an exploration of how resilience is not a rigid stance, but a fluid process—a journey that requires both the gentleness to bend with change and the energy to face it head-on. 

##### How do you balance personal expression with audience expectations in your work?

At the beginning of my art career I was very concerned by this aspect. I made paintings that were somehow ‘me’ but for some other reason they were ‘not me’. And that made me feel uncomfortable and I could not recognize myself entirely. 

I think art is about authenticity, so it’s wonderful when the viewer feels in sync with what I try to represent. Even more than that, I love when viewers share how they feel in front of the painting. Whether it’s a memory, an emotion, it’s amazing to witness people being in touch with themselves. 

Even when I work on commissions, I only accept them if it’s something that resonates with me - otherwise the painting wouldn’t speak to me and most probably not to them. 

##### What do you think is the most important quality for an artist to possess?

I would say it’s courage. It takes a lot to find our own voice (aesthetic and of meaning) and to put it out there, no matter what. And it takes a lot of it to accept the risk of being ignored, not understood, judged, laughed at... Finally you need courage to keep growing, developing, not ‘sitting down’ in a comfort zone because ‘it sells’, if that doesn’t mirror who you are anymore.  

Then one also has to make ends meet: to make a profession out of it, you have to be very determined, constant, patient, flexible, to deal with economic pressures, responsibilities towards one’s family, understanding a market that is evolving at crazy speed and so on. 

What I find interesting and essential to me is that I find that courage every time I’m in front of other artists’ art: so many of them helped and supported me in so many silent ways - I’ll always be grateful for that. 

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Francesca Borgo explores fluidity and resilience, using natural elements to create tactile landscapes filled with emotion and transformation.


Spotlight: Francesca Borgo on Finding Balance in Chaos Through Art and Nature

Spotlight: Francesca Borgo on Finding Balance in Chaos Through Art and Nature

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