My name is Valentina Rizzo, also known as Vava. I am a traveling artist. Born in 1990 in Ferrara, Italy, I have been passionate about drawing and painting since childhood. After graduating in Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts...
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My name is Valentina Rizzo, also known as Vava. I am a traveling artist. Born in 1990 in Ferrara, Italy, I have been passionate about drawing and painting since childhood. After graduating in Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence (2012), I specialized in Illustration and Graphics at ISIA Urbino (2018). Between 2016 and 2019, I collaborated with Atelier – the Research Center for Conceptual Anthropology led by Professor Emmanuel Anati – and with SciVis, a laboratory connected to the CNR of Pisa, dedicated to the visualization of complex scientific data, developing a symbolic pictographic language to translate natural and biochemical processes.
Since then, my artistic journey has been deeply shaped by my travels: I lived in Ireland and France, and later spent three years in New Zealand, where I collaborated with Māori communities on a mural in the Taupo area. In Australia, I worked in Melbourne with renowned artist Anthony Breslin and with Indigenous communities in the Central Desert.
For me, creating is not only a form of expression but also a way to explore perception, connect with the world, and reveal inner landscapes. I currently work as a freelance illustrator and visual artist, and I am based at Spazio Factory Grisù in Ferrara, where I am developing Ngarrpiya Dreaming, a project inspired by five years of solo travel in the Southern Hemisphere. Like the octopus, my path continues to move and transform.