Cover image: Eva Bovenzi, The Traffic Between Heaven and Earth #3, 2022.
Art is as much a reflection of the artist’s inner world as it is of their external conditions and associations, both known and unknown.
Eva Bovenzi was born on the East Coast, grew up in the Midwest, and came to California to obtain an MFA from the California College of the Arts in Oakland. Her interest in the intertwined themes of nature and spirituality was nurtured in the Californian culture, and became the lodestone around which her art has developed.
Art is as much a reflection of the artist’s inner world as it is of their external conditions and associations, both known and unknown.
Curator Camilla Boemio engages in a captivating conversation with Eva Bovenzi about her artistic practice. Her ethereal and spiritual paintings explore the interplay of light, shadow, and form and in this interview she shares insights into her artistic process and inspiration.
Camilla Boemio: How did you make your way to California, specifically to the Bay Area? and what does it mean to you as a place?
Eva Bovenzi: I came to the Bay Area from the Midwest when I was in my twenties to go to graduate school at the California College of Arts and Crafts, as it was known then. It was the month of February, the depths of winter in Michigan—so to arrive to this blessed climate of sunshine and jasmine and lemon trees was a revelation. Who could not fall in love with the abundance and beauty here? These many years later, I am still grateful to be in northern California (though I now find it a trifle cold here, especially in summer).
CB: How have the environment, the landscape and the light changed your imagination and perception?
EB: I had never felt at home in the Midwest, even though I grew up there. I instinctively knew that I needed more light, more openness, more beauty around me. When I arrived in California, I immediately felt like I could breathe here, could expand imaginatively and emotionally into the atmosphere and culture.
Photographer: John Janca
Image 1: Scholar’s Stone”, 2020. Collage: acrylic on Yupo mounted on Arches paper. 15×12.5 inches
Middle image: Eva Bovenzi “On the Face of It” 2024. Acrylic on wood panel 48×36″
Image 3: Eva Bovenzi “Hierophant” 2024. Acrylic on wood panel. 40×30″,
CB: When you first started making art, how old were you, and what kind of work were you doing?
EB: I was one of those children who liked to draw and paint, and I was recognized by my teachers as being good at it. So I made art throughout high school. I majored in English Literature in college, though, and had no time to do art. I dropped out of school before finishing my undergraduate degree, got married and traveled a lot. I gradually rediscovered my pleasure in making art, returning to finish my B.A. and taking as many art classes as I could to qualify to apply to graduate school. So, the art that I was doing was what you learn at a fundamentals level—drawing, figure drawing, figure painting, etc. I hadn’t developed my own voice.
CB: What is your creative process like?
EB: I’ve been doing art for more than 50 years now, so I very much have my own voice. My creative process is that of any working artist: go to your studio and continue doing your work. That’s what you do with your life, that’s who you are. I do tend to work in series—a group of works that circulate around a particular theme. When a series seems complete, it might take a while for the next idea to emerge. I’ve come to accept this as my process. Every artist has a different rhythm.
Photographer: John Janca
Image 1: Eva Bovenzi, The Traffic Between Heaven and Earth #3, 2022, Collage; acrylic on Yupo paper mounted on toned Arches paper, 24 x 22 inches
Middle image: Eva Bovenzi “Eleven of Swords” 2024. Acrylic on wood panel. 48×36
Image 3: Eva Bovenzi: “. When Mountains Walk”, 2020. Collage: acrylic on Yupo mounted on Arches paper. 14.75×10.75 inches
CB: What are the artistic influences recurring throughout your work?
EB: In the big picture, I would say nature, abstraction, and an exploration of spirituality are the sources of my subject matter. They are the well to which I return. I’ve always been interested in art history and look for inspiration there, rather than in contemporary work. In terms of Western art, I am most interested in pre-Renaissance art: very early work from around the Mediterranean—Cypriot, Cycladic, Sumerian, Assyrian—then moving into Byzantine, and early medieval art. In non-western art, I look to the art and ceremonial objects from various spiritual traditions: Tantric art, Indian miniatures, Native American art.
CB: In your artworks I can see impulses towards utopian transcendence (aesthetic, spiritual or otherwise). What do you think?
EB: My latest series is called “The Traffic Between Heaven and Earth”, and I think it aptly describes my artistic preoccupations, as well as my personal quest throughout my adult life. I had a seminal experience in Peru when I was in my twenties. While visiting colonial cathedrals there, I found myself mesmerized by the statues of the saints, which were heaped with offerings from the faithful. It was the first time I had witnessed art being used as a vehicle to the communicate with the transcendent. It was art with a purpose, not art for art’s sake. It was art that contained meaning, longing, emotion. I knew that I wanted to make art that functioned something like that for the viewer. In retrospect, those statues of saints were my first awakening to the idea of the traffic between heaven and earth. As a person, I am very interested in the transcendent aspects of being human—our need to make meaning of our existence, our creation of religions to express our sense of the ineffable. So, though I have no illusions about Utopianism, I am definitely interested in the human need for the transcendent.
Image 1: Eva Bovenzi “Monument” Collage: Acrylic paint on Yupo paper adhered to wood panel. 12×9″
Middle image: Eva Bovenzi “Black Wing” 2022. Collage:acrylic paint on Yupo paper adhered to wood panel. 12×9
Image 3: Eva Bovenzi, “The Traffic Between Heaven and Earth #1, 2022, Collage; acrylic on Yupo paper mounted on toned Arches paper, 22 x 19 inches
CB: What was your last solo show and what are your future projects?
EB: My solo exhibition, “The Traffic Between Heaven and Earth” at Pastine Projects in San Francisco just closed. I will be in a print exhibition at the Steamboat Art Museum in Steamboat Springs, CO opening at the end of May. And I will be back in the studio starting my next body of work.
Eva Bovenzi has lived in the Bay Area since receiving her MFA, and has exhibited her work locally at the Oakland Museum, the San Francisco Art Institute, Kala Institute, the Graduate Theological Union, the Berkeley Art Center, Bedford Gallery, Pastine Projects, David Cunningham Projects, Transmission Gallery, and Toomey Tourell Fine Arts, among others. Nationally, she has shown at the Phoenix Museum of Art, the ICPNY in New York City, Michael Warren Contemporary / Denver, the San Antonio Museum of Art and the Seattle Museum Gallery, among others. Internationally, she has exhibited in the the 5th Annual Biennal of Painting in Cuenca, Ecuador, the Assisi International Contemporary Art Exhibition, and the Biennale Internazionale dell’Arte Contemporanea in Florence, Italy.
Camilla Boemio is an internationally published author, curator, and member of the AICA (International Arts Critics), IKT (International) and part of board of Cycladic Arts (Greece) and AAC Platform, based in Rome. She conducts theoretical and practical research on co-creation, social engaged art practices and connections between art and science, heritage/history of art and contemporary art. Boemio’s recent curatorial exhibition include, TEN YEARS: BSR People 14 – 24 at The British School at Rome, a solo show by Antonio Palmieri, who over the course of ten years working at BSR has photographed the people who have passed through the academy, from fellows to staff, inventing characters and telling stories (2024).
In 2021; she edited the book The Edge of Equilibrium published by Vanilla Edizioni. The Edge of Equilibrium weaves a dialogue of many voices, rather than making a fixed statement, and offers a wide picture of art communities, alternative land-based, low-impact ways of living, which address issues and dilemmas relevant for an epochal renovation. The book was presented at Artissima, Roma Arte In Nuvola 2021 and Art Verona 16. The book is part of the collection Getty Museum’s library.
