Cecilia De Lucia is an artist and designer specializing in calligrams and black-and-white. After years of experience as an art director and marketing manager, she chose to fully dedicate herself to her artistic research, exploring the connection between text and image. Her works range from literature to music, with a particular focus on portraiture. She has participated in several collective exhibitions in Italy and has a permanent collection at the A. Cialdi Library in Civitavecchia.
STATEMENT.
My work is born from the intersection between words and images. Through the technique of calligrams, I transform literary and poetic texts into portraits and visual compositions, creating a dialogue between meaning and form. Each piece is a journey between sign and writing, where the beauty of literature intertwines with the aesthetics of drawing.
MANIFESTO.
Handwriting is an act of resistance.
In my work, the word becomes body again—breath, living matter.
In an age where everything is filtered through a screen, I return to paper, to ink, to the human mark that slides, stumbles, rises again.
My handwriting is not calligraphic, not standard, not schooled.
It is personal.
It is identity.
Each letter is a gesture.
Each ligature is an emotional connection.
Each curve follows the flow of thought or the shape of the subject. Each loop adapts to the breath of the piece—it tightens or opens, leans or breaks.
I don’t write to decorate.
I write to build.
The word becomes a visual structure, the sentence dissolves into the drawing, the text takes shape and becomes image. In my calligrams, I write portraits, moods, inner landscapes.
Each piece is a balance between meaning and composition.
Writing in cursive, today, is a rare act.
It’s intimate, imperfect, direct.
It’s a declaration of independence from the fast and impersonal pace of the digital age.
It’s the trace of a real presence.
I write to remind us that hands speak.
I write to give voice to what is silent.
I write to make thought visible.
