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In 2018 Emiliano Ponzi spent 21 days “on the road” on the West coast of the U.S.A., from his travel notebook was born the collection “American West”
Emiliano Ponzi – American West – 2018
In American West, one of your last works, you represent a very suggestive part of USA; everything starts from a travel you did through those legendary sites and landscapes described by Steinbeck, Hockney, etc. Can you tell us why all this fascinates you so much and why you decide to start such a kind of work?
Emiliano Ponzi – American West – 2018
The first thing I wanted to do during this holiday was not to draw on commission; I wanted to go back to the origin, thanks also to the beauty of landscapes that I saw.
I wanted to be impressed by light, architecture, natural settings. Then, the work became on commission from the moment I showed some images to The New Yorker’s creative director, a friend of mine. He immediately asked me to produce an Instagram takeover for The New Yorker’s account, lasting one week, by spreading my stories and the related illustrations. In fact everything was born from the intention of drawing something different, finding myself among some unique landscapes.
For example, in Page, Arizona, I saw the most beautiful sunset of my life, full of stripes, colours and amazing clouds; or the light bouncing in the canyon, the atmosphere in Los Angeles…I think that drawing is a practice of knowledge toward the world; by drawing, you assimilate what stands in front of you, like a writer that fills up a travel diary and brings with him a piece of what he saw. Because seeing is not always enough, you need also to be able to describe again your experience.
