Martina Guasti
My name is Martina and I have been painting ever since I was a little girl. I had the incredible fortune of being born here in Florence Italy, one of the most magical places on earth. As a child, I knew how lucky I was to grow up under the Tuscan sun and to be surrounded by such beauty. I was and forever will be in awe of all our museums, castles, villas and churches, but the deepest place in my heart has always been for old gardens. Whenever I enter a garden through a rusty gate, I am still that little girl happy as one can be.
My love for Art and History lead me to my first studies at the Academy of Fine Arts of Florence with a degree in painting and later to the pursuit of becoming a licensed tour guide in Italy.
For several years I shared with joy my knowledge of my country with people from all over the world, hardly believing that this had become my profession.
Until the pandemic hit.
As I lost my job, I decided to go back to what I do best, but in a different way: sharing my love for Italy through my paintbrushes.
I recently moved into my grandparent's abandoned house, and decided to turn the old garage that was once my grandfather’s laboratory into my own art studio. My grandfather's profession was creating the highest quality oboes and clarinets. To watch the documentary "My Grandfather's oboe" narrated by my sister Camilla, click here. After his death, his studio had become the family's garage. During the lockdown, I sifted through 30 years of our family’s deposit in order to give new life to what was my grandfather’s place of creativity and art, now making it my own.
So now I am starting from here. This is the first time in my life that I have decided to become a full-time artist. The pandemic may prevent me from physically sharing my places with others but it cannot stop me from spreading my love and joy of sharing.
Renoir once said «I like a painting that makes me want to take a stroll in it». Through my art, as if I were still tour guiding, I'd like to take you by the hand and walk you through the hidden paths of old historical gardens. To make you breathe in past centuries and the scent of roses, cypress trees and lemon blossoms. To help you rest under the shadow of a statue peeking out from under a perfectly shaped boxwood, narrating its story from Greek and Roman mythology. To make you feel the fresh water sprinkling from a fountain on a hot Tuscan summer morning, or to wander through the mystic aura of a cloudy spring afternoon. To lift your heart in places where Art and Nature live in perfect harmony in a suspended time through History.
