Vanessa Semaino

Born in Messina in 1972, Vanessa Semaino moved to Milan in ’90, where she earned a diploma in fashion design from the I.E.D.

She worked with prestigious brands such as Versace and Dolce&Gabbana, nurturing a personal aesthetic exploration that would find its expression, following a period of introspection, in the fusion of her Sicilian origins and her acquired experience in the world of fashion. Her art takes shape through ceramic sculptures depicting female Moorish heads, which, with a provocative and ironic representation, underscored by a pop visual language, touch on the current social issues that the artist addresses within the theme of the seven deadly sins. Her works, entirely handmade and branded Surolù, while decontextualized from their origins, evoke the historical authenticity of Sicilian culture through the majolica decorations of the 18th-century Calatino ornamentation. Her first exhibition was curated by the prestigious figure of Jean Blanchaert, and today she exhibits in renowned galleries in Milan and Porto Cervo, under the iconic Rossana Orlandi.