The visionary art of Zoe Lacchei
Life and disquiet

By Francesca Camerino
january 2009

Eclectic and passionate, exotic and erotic; Zoe Lacchei’s unmistakable artistic style is a fusion of traditional techniques and cutting-edge contemporary vision. Delicate designs of extraordinary anatomies, fragile human figures that might be angels or demons; animals on the very edge of reality; images powered by a limitless sense of fantasy. The 32-year-old artist burst onto the international scene in 2004 when she realized thirteen paintings for Marilyn Manson’s Gold Disc “The Golden Age of the Grotesque”. Lacchei’s work is frequently dark and troubling, offering a strange and precarious mix of beauty and repulsion. Life as disquiet.
Even since I was young I’ve always found difficulty in using words to express certain states of mind and emotion; drawing has always given me a much more immediate way of self-expression. As I grew up this only became stronger and, as I gradually acquired a better working knowledge of different techniques, I found my imaginative universe expanding and I began to tackle more adult and complex themes. From the outset my aim has been to express myself through my art. Even today it’s still the best way I know of communicating to others who I am.

Your art covers a vast range of different media and techniques.You switch with ease from one to another. Do you have a favourite?
My first commissions were as an illustrator for adult comic books. It was easy work and well-paid; it was fun too, but if you do it on a full-time basis you have to accept too many regulations and too many compromises. I decided to move in a different direction, I wanted more artistic freedom. I concentrated on illustration and character design. I’ve only recently started working with art galleries; it’s hard work but very satisfying. Whatever media or technique I’m using, however, the aim is always to create an emotional impact.
Your illustrations are often adorned with strange and fabulous animals.

What’s your attraction for them?
Through the animals I try to make manifest sensations of unease and suffering that would otherwise be difficult to express. I love insects, especially moths; but I have an almost phobic reaction to spiders – I use them in my work whenever I want to create a sensation of something dark and disturbing. I like depicting animals which provoke fear or are regarded as ugly; in every one of us there are darker elements which others – the outside world – struggle to understand.

From who or what do you draw your inspiration?
Usually dream-like or surreal situations. I try and fuse reality with dream and nightmare. It goes without saying that the artists I’m most influenced by are all blessed with unusual imaginations. For example, among the contemporary Western painters I most deeply admire are Saturno Buttò, Michael Hussar and Mark Ryden. As far as Japanese art is concerned, there’s Takato Yamamoto, Range Murata, Katsuya Terada and Yasushi Nirasawa. I also enjoy the animated films of directors like Satoshi Kon and Hayao Miyazaki; they helped me to understand how illustrated characters can still express complex psychological depth.

Your fascination with Japanese culture is nowhere more evident than in the recent hugely successful series of paintings you produced for the “Geisha Project”. How did the project begin?
” Geisha Project” was born out of the idea of using the expression of the highest form of elegant feminine perfection in order to show the fragility and unease that may be hidden behind the austerity and rigour of a highly complex and ancient culture. The women in my paintings are not only geishas but also oiran/tayuu, the high-ranking courtesans of early Japan. Western culture has always viewed geishas – erroneously – as prostitutes, a sort of slave figure trained only to serve men. Nowadays there is a clearer understanding, however, that the geisha is a complete artist devoted to the perfection wrapped in the sublime detachment codified over centuries in Japanese aesthetics. My interpretation of this special world aimed to skew this rigour and austerity by depicting these women in all their sensuous and morbid unease. I adore Japanese culture for its extravagance and complexity. For me it’s an inexhaustible source of inspiration. It’s a world of such extraordinary beauty, it leaves me astonished and in a state of wonder like a child.

Limited edition Giclee Prints of Zoe Lacchei’s Geisha Project paintings are currently available from the Fine Grime Gallery and Art Publishing House, Bath, UK
www.finegrime.co.uk.

Do you work in Italy or abroad?
Working in Italy is always very complicated. Things are never easy. People are totally obsessed with the techniques used to produce a work of art, rather than focusing on the work itself. There is also sometimes a reluctance to accept certain concepts and subject matter. I think abroad artists are granted more creative freedom and respect. There’s also more professionalism and seriousness. Often I may be working here in Italy, but only because someone on the other side of the world believes in what I’m doing.

What projects have you got lined up for the future?
There are several. At the moment I’m completing a series of illustrations with the overall title “Beauties & Beasts”. They are all inspired by photographs from the second half of the 19th century. After that I’ll be producing a group of illustrations entitled “Japanese Female Ghosts and Demons”. Then I’m planning a series of “erotic” illustrations featuring models like Nana - RapeBlossom, Mikaela Mae, Koneko and many others.
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A career between dreams and nightmares

Zoe Lacchei was born outside Roma in 1977. After completing her high school studies at art institute where she had become increasingly interested in illustration for comic books and animation, at 19 she enrolled at the “Scuola Internazionale Di Comics” in Rome where she studied figurative and digital arts. Subsequently she focused on intensive study of the subjects she loved the most, such as human anatomy and Japanese culture. These elements were to provide the richest source of inspiration for her later work. Her unbridled talent, expressed through shocking images and disturbing themes found few admirers in the Italian art world. In a bold move she entered one of Japan’s most prestigious competitions for illustrators and graphic artists and arrived on the final shortlist until it was discovered she was not Japanese and she was disqualified.
Scraping a living thanks to a series of badly paid commissions producing graphic art, including porno-chic comic books, Lacchei sought to interest Italian publishers in her work – without success.
In 2002 she began working on a Marilyn Manson Project and in 2004 was chosen by Universal Music Italia, to produce thirteen illustrations for Manson’s Gold Disc “The Golden Age of the Grotesque”. These were then collected and published in the original portfolio “Metamorphosis, the art of Zoe Lacchei”.
Since then Lacchei has produced a huge number of increasingly successful works and exhibited around the world.
Her professional collaboration with Marilyn Manson has continued. In 2007 she produced the illustrations for Manson’s sixth studio album “Eat Me, Drink Me.”