About artist
Nicoletta Rustici and Grazia Simoncelli of Cioccolato Creativo
A duo of artists - pastry chef or confectioner - artists who, united by their passion for chocolate, decided in an absolutely original way to begin a journey that would transform the world's most beloved food into a pictorial subject. Can chocolate be transformed into a painting? Yes, this is demonstrated by the artistic production of Nicoletta Rustici and Grazia Simoncelli of Cioccolato Creativo. An innovation certainly in the panorama of art that sees them being followed and appreciated in Italian and foreign art exhibitions. Cioccolato Creativo is a brand through which the two artists create paintings, mosaics and sculptures entirely in chocolate. Like new clay, chocolate is modeled with a spatula and with the hands.
To make the chromatic mixture the chocolate is assembled with unique food colors compatible with this material, thus aiming to give color, shape and substance to scenes of ordinary artistic representation and on the surface of the chocolate painting imaginative scenes take shape. With validated technique and sympathy the artists pay homage to the greats of art as in the case of the portraits of Salvador Dali', Pablo Picasso and as in the case of the cocoa sculptures depicting the characters of Fernando Botero, greatly appreciated by the artist himself. Chocolate is a material loved by everyone, which can create skepticism to traditionalists who see it only as a simple delicacy to eat. The idea was born as a break from a system where technology has made everything perfect and the essential has become insignificant. Bauman says "we live in a liquid society, it is based on everything that is temporary, unstable, without substance and ephemeral" and Muriel Barbery says "beauty is what we grasp while it is passing is the ephemeral configuration of things in the moment in which you see together the beauty and death".
The ephemeral art, which in our times finds its highest expression, is the basis of the thought that inspires Creative Chocolate, that is, everything that does not have as its purpose the preservation for posterity. The work of art, the materials that compose it and the space in which we come into contact with them are mere snapshots of a moment that will soon be transformed or disappear altogether to be preserved exclusively in our shared memories. Street art, Garau's invisible sculpture, Cattelan's banana and therefore paintings, mosaics and chocolate sculptures are united in the same theory. The manual work of modeling the material becomes a magical experiment that brings art back to the state 0, that ancient skill that can translate a personal feeling into tangible model, and it is precisely the inner language, which takes shape and substance in their works. Imagination, experimentation, joy and above all the stubbornness to find new techniques before conventions is their way of making art with the hope of a good sensory tasting.
Nicoletta Rustici and Grazia Simoncelli of Cioccolato Creativo made their artistic debut in 2014 at the Fernando Botero Exhibition in Parma at the Teatro Verdi in Busseto on the occasion of the presentation of the premiere of Donizetti's Elisir d'amore as seen by Botero. They proposed a life-size ballerina of the Master all in white chocolate weighing 60 kg, leaving amazed the public, the critics, as well as the Master Botero who pleasantly wanted to congratulate the artists. Also in 2014 the works of art of Creative Chocolate of Nicoletta and Grazia participated in the event of Japanese culture and tradition "Nipponsai" in Parma, participating in the Biennale of Contemporary Art in Rome and Artexpo in Barcelona. In 2016 in Ravenna they presented a personal exhibition of mosaics and high reliefs in chocolate. They still participate in art exhibitions in Bologna, Udine, Rome, Venice, La Spezia, Paris, are selected for the Milan Biennale 2019 and invited to the television program "Gustibus" on channel La 7 to bring testimony to those who see chocolate simply as a delicacy, how it can be perfectly shaped and molded with a perfect performance in space and time. Cioccolato creativo by Nicoletta Rustici and Grazia Simoncelli is published in the Atlante dell'Arte 2020 by editoriale De Agostini.