In conversation: artist Donatella Izzo

Ten years of No-Portraits: anti-portraits that listen, transform, and reveal imperfection, suspended between memory, gesture, and identity.

Curated by Simon Invernizzi

Donatella’s studio is an intimate, quiet space, as if Milan were left outside once you cross the threshold.

She welcomes me with genuine warmth, without too many formalities. A direct smile, one that immediately puts you at ease.

She invites me to sit at the table by the window and asks whether I would prefer tea or coffee. I choose tea; She nods and steps away for a moment.

I remain seated. Suddenly, I sense a strange feeling, like the sensation of being watched and only then do I realize it.

There are faces in the room. They are not arranged in an orderly way, nor displayed to be looked at. Some are on the walls, others on shelves, and still others resting on a chair or on the floor. They do not look at me directly, but I feel their presence.

A small, silent audience, a chorus of suspended presences, waiting for someone to give them a voice.

When Donatella returns and sets the tea on the table, the moment is not broken. It is as if she and those faces share the same language.

They are not portraits, at least not in the way we usually understand them. The artist calls them “No-Portraits”, anti-portraits.

Nell'attesa sorriderò di nascosto (2024)

NO-PORTRAITS

A series, which has just celebrated its tenth anniversary, born from the desire to move the portrait away from mere likeness. Here, the face is not meant to recognize a person, but to encounter something deeper: a passage, a tension, an identity that is never still. A study and celebration of imperfection in an era where people do everything to erase it.

No-Portraits is, above all, a negation. A rejection of the polished, flawless images that fill social media, of faces that always smile the same way.

Here, the face is not a surface to display, but a space to traverse. Every erasure, every mark becomes a way to dismantle the idea of perfection and give room to flaw, to experience, to what remains after the image has cracked.

Izzo speaks of “anti-portrait” because she does not seek likeness, but the truth that remains when the face stops being recognizable. In her works, the skin scratches, dissolves, and recomposes: it is the very substance of identity made visible, fragile, human. These are images that do not ask to be understood, but to be felt. Portraits that, while you look at them, give back something of yourself, perhaps a part you had stopped seeing.

Photography is only the starting point.

On the print, Donatella intervenes with cuts, abrasions, layers of color, powders, plaster or ink. Each gesture alters, erases, and brings back to life. When the process reaches a fragile balance, the artist photographs again, a second image that captures what is about to dissolve. In this way, the final result is never a copy of a face, but the trace of a passage. A portrait that, instead of showing, listens.

Donatella Izzo in her studio in Milan

Donatella, when did you first feel the need to “break” the traditional portrait?

I began to feel the need to break the traditional portrait with the rise of Instagram and social networks, when images started to become increasingly uniform through the use of filters and perfection-enhancing tools. Everything appeared polished, corrected, seemingly flawless. At that moment, I clearly sensed that things were moving in the opposite direction of individual truth: a gradual falsification of one’s self-image.

From this awareness arose the desire to start a project that did exactly the opposite: a work that did not try to hide, but to dig deeper. I began to focus on the most profound and unsettling aspects of people, highlighting flaws not as elements to be corrected, but as markers of identity, unique and unrepeatable. In this sense, the portrait becomes a space of resistance, where imperfection is not a limitation, but a positive and necessary value.

How does the concept of imperfection interact with your idea of beauty?

The concept of imperfection interacts with my idea of beauty precisely because I am convinced that a universal beauty does not exist. Beauty is something deeply subjective, evocative, and inevitably fleeting: it lasts only briefly, changes over time, and transforms. For this reason, it cannot be reduced to a fixed standard or a shared aesthetic ideal.

Above all, I believe that beauty is an inner state, a way of being in the world. It is the ability to show oneself for who one truly is, in one’s own uniqueness, without trying to conform to imposed models. In this sense, imperfection becomes a fundamental element, because it is precisely there that authenticity and the truth of the individual emerge.

For me, beauty reveals itself in the gestures we make, in the way we look at things, in the relationship we build with nature and with other people. It is a complex whole that does not end with physical appearance, but lives in the deeper facets of personality, in who we are and in how we relate to the world.

Aspettando che scenda la luna (left) | She wanted (right)

Many of your subjects are women. Is there a shared narrative that connects their faces?

Yes, most of my subjects are women, because I believe that the obsession with perfection at all costs and the celebration of a universal, standardized idea of beauty concern the female world above all. Women are still the ones most affected, and often crushed, by these mechanisms of homogenization. This is evident in what has been happening in recent years in the field of aesthetics: so-called “beauty enhancement” processes, entrusted to surgeons and doctors, are producing faces that look increasingly alike, where the same features are systematically replicated. In the past, people went to the hairdresser to get the haircut of the VIP of the moment; today, they go to the surgeon to obtain the same lips, the same cheekbones, the same eye shape.

In a short time, a worrying standardization has taken place, affecting above all the most vulnerable women, those who feel the need to recognize themselves in unified models of beauty in order to accept who they are. This is also why I chose to address women primarily, as an act of care and a clear stance.

The narrative thread that connects these faces, however, is never rigid or explicitly stated. It is intentionally subtle, because every woman and every person, carries a unique story. Even where, at first glance, there seems to be nothing to tell, something always emerges when you dig deeper. My work moves precisely in this direction: seeking what is hidden, initially imperceptible, and connected not so much to outward appearance as to inner personality, a dimension that belongs to everyone.

In some works you appear yourself, along with your daughters and people you love. What does it mean for you to “expose” yourself through them?

Yes, that’s true. Some of the figures that inhabit the No-Portraits series emerge from real encounters and fragments of memory. In this sense, I work a great deal with a deep, layered memory, which leads me to use parts of the faces of people close to me, friends, loved ones, sometimes even my daughters. These elements, however, are never left directly recognizable: I mix them, transform them, and recombine them to create faces that do not exist in reality.

This process stems from the desire to imagine a new possibility of beauty, a different canon in which the idea of a collective beauty can emerge. A beauty that does not belong to a single individual, but brings together diverse traits, personalities, and characteristics, all equally valid and necessary.

In this sense, exposure has nothing negative about it and is not a return to the desire to appear at all costs, as often happens on social media. On the contrary, it is an intimate and conscious act: creating images that I feel are deeply mine, strong images, because within them I recognize fragments of people I love. This recognition gives me a sense of reconstruction, where past and present coexist and intertwine within the same visual space. I hope that this strength, born from the union of multiple subjects within a single image, can be felt by the viewer, allowing the work to become an image even deeper than reality itself.

The Secret Garden (2025)

Your images seem to live multiple lives: photography, manual intervention, and then photography again. How do you know when a work is “finished”?

My images do indeed live multiple lives, and the final work is the result of a layering of complex processes, each one different from the other. I always start with an initial photograph, which is printed and becomes the site for manual intervention. On that surface, I work in a direct, physical way, using different techniques often combined: painting, abrasion, the use of solvents to corrode parts of the ink, collage, and the repeated layering of the same image.

It is a very fragile moment in the work, almost ethereal: the image can change with a gust of wind or an accidental gesture, and it is precisely this instability that interests me. Yet, when I feel that the work conveys a clear message, as if it were saying, “Enough, this is me”, I photograph it again in high resolution.

In this step, the image changes its nature: from something extremely fleeting and ephemeral, it becomes eternal. The photographic shot, after all, carries this quality of permanence, of “forever,” and this contrast fascinates me deeply.

Here too, the theme of beauty returns: something that lasts only a moment, and at the same time can be fixed forever. I know a work is finished when it speaks to me, when it asks me to stop, to leave it as it is, and to walk away.

You’ve spoken about fragility and accidental gestures, have you ever thought that an unexpected mistake could reveal more truth than a controlled gesture?

Yes, absolutely. In my work, control is never total, in fact, it is kept to a minimum. Everything is left to the moment, to the specific situation in which the work takes shape. Every gesture arises from an impulse, and an impulse, by its very nature, is something unexpected, something that cannot truly be controlled. It is precisely in this lack of control that I feel a form of truth emerge, more authentic than that of a perfectly calculated gesture.

L'estate addosso (left) | Giovane donna con melagrana aperta (right)

If you were to think of your works as a voice, what tone would it have? Would it whisper, shout, or remain silent?

That’s a beautiful question, but also a difficult one. My work would probably remain silent, not because it has nothing to say, but because silence is an open space, one to be filled. It is a condition of possibility, rather than an absence.

In silence, anything can happen: it is the space where the viewer can project their own experience, feelings, and truth. It is a space that does not impose, guide, or shout, but welcomes. In this sense, silence becomes the most powerful form of communication, because it gives the audience the possibility to immerse themselves in my narrative, my story, and my memory.

Do you ever recognize yourself in the faces you create, even when they don’t belong to you?

Yes, inevitably. Even when the faces I create do not belong to me directly, they still emerge from my personal experience, my gestures, and what I perceive in the moment I work on an image.

Each intervention carries with it a trace of me, of my way of seeing and feeling. For this reason, in some way, I always recognize myself in those faces: they are images in which I see and find myself every time, as if each work were also a form of self-portrait, even when it is not explicitly one.

La felicità non è solo personale (2025)

Milan is the city where you have lived and worked for years. How much does it influence your artistic research?

Milan is certainly the Italian city where contemporary art has the greatest opportunity to be expressed and seen compared to other cities. I’m not sure how much this directly influences my artistic research, but it has an important impact on my personality and on the way I live and perceive the world.

Milan belongs to the world: it is a true melting pot of cultures, emotions, and people coming from every corner of the globe. All of this inevitably influences my perspective, providing constant points of reflection and cross-pollination that are also reflected in my work. In a sense, the city becomes fertile ground where ideas and sensitivities can meet, mix, and grow.

Is there a place, a rhythm, or a detail of the city that feels close to your way of working?

Yes, there is a place to which I feel deeply connected, a magical place that every time I visit makes my heart skip a beat, because it takes me back to the years when it all began: the years when I realized that my life would inevitably be dedicated to art, that art belonged to me, and that I could never live without it, because in some way it had taken hold of me.

That place is the Brera Academy of Fine Arts: walking through its corridors takes me back to when I was just a young girl, immersed in a suspended silence, a space where anything could happen. Perhaps it was there that it all began, and I like to think that for so many new artistic promises, it is there that everything is still yet to happen.

How do you experience Milan’s current art scene, between galleries, fairs, and independent spaces? Is there anything you feel is changing?

Milan’s art scene is very active, with galleries, fairs, and independent spaces. Compared to when I was younger, however, the time I can dedicate to experiencing it has drastically decreased, so I make the most of every opportunity to visit these places and observe what’s happening.

As for transformations, I like to think that they are always underway, but not necessarily as a projection toward the future or a pursuit of novelty at all costs. Transformation can also mean knowing how to read the city’s own history, understanding what made Milan such an important artistic center, and recognizing in its best years the inspirations and values that continue to influence today’s scene.

After moving through these faces and stories, where will we be able to see your work in Milan in the near future? Can you already give us a preview of your upcoming projects?

This year, No-Portraits celebrates ten years since its inception in 2016, and it will soon be on view in Padua at the Black Light Gallery from February 28, a space entirely dedicated to photography. Simultaneously, in March, the project will continue its journey in Milan for the next edition of the Mia Photo Fair, presented by Tallulah Studio Art. Finally, it will arrive in the heart of Rome at Von Buren Contemporary, with a solo exhibition opening on May 9.

After this series of exhibitions, No-Portraits will enter a period of pause, allowing me to dedicate myself to new projects that will be completely different. There are exciting developments on the horizon, but to discover them, we’ll need to meet again.