“The eye does not see things, but images of things that mean other things.”
ITALO CALVINO
Griffons, mermaids, chimeras, dragons, phoenixes.
Is there anyone who has ever seen them? Some animals live between myth and reality and people who swear they have encountered them are usually considered fools. Yet, this fantastic fauna spies on us from Romanesque churches’ capitals, the shiny bracelets in museum display cases, and the illuminated books of Irish libraries.
The power of these creatures does not lie in realism, indeed, it is quite the opposite. Their bi-dimensionality makes them even more powerful, as it allows them to be drenched in mystery.
Concorto has its own fantastic animal too, a creature that makes the impossible possible: its flying donkey. Anyone who spent a few summer days in the leafy shade of Parco Raggio knows it.
This year, this donkey comes back to life – recalls the anatomical and feathered appearance of the Arabian anqa – thanks to Elisa Seitzinger. Her ink gives birth to a vision that depicts a hieratic donkey, whose tiny tail recalls old curtain pullers, surrounded by pyrotechnic stars and the moon, a silent accomplice of the donkey’s ascent. It could be a decoration of the cinema greenhouse that hosts our Concorto nights every summer. It could be an epiphany among the leaves of the hundred-year-old oak tree. It could be, or perhaps is, a symbol of our dream that comes back to life each year.
In the author’s own words:
The possibility of contributing to the many wonderful posters of different editions of Concorto thrilled me, and so this new winged donkey was born: a toy, red polka-dotted (actually combed like a zebra) donkey, with gold hooves and a tassel-like tail, hovering on an August night, illuminated by the moon and shooting stars to fulfill the wishes of daydreamers under the Festival sky.
Elisa Seitzinger lives in Turin, Italy, where she works as an illustrator and visual artist.
She was a lecturer in morphology and dynamics of form and iconography at the European Institute of Design in Turin from 2015 to 2020.
Her art always starts with hand-drawn ink drawing, with which she pursues bi-dimensionality and stillness tinted with a strong symbolic charge.
Gold medal winner 2021 (educational and scientific illustration and illustration for design and advertising category), bronze medal winner 2020 and 2021 (magazine illustration) of Authors of Images, winner of Premio Illustri 2018 – Design category and nominated at the same Festival in 2019 as one of the ten most influential illustrators in Italy, nominated at the Society of Illustrators 2021 annual exhibition at the Illustration Museum in New York, shortlisted for the World Illustration Awards 2021 and 2023.
She was featured in numerous group and solo exhibitions, both in Italy and abroad. Between 2022 and 2023, she exhibited four anthological shows: Seitzinger Alchemica at Forte Malatesta in Ascoli Piceno and Collegio Rosmini in Domodossola, Agiografie Profane in the former Church of San Ludovico in Parma, and Sacro Fuoco at the Cavallerizza Reale in Turin.
She works for and with all major national newspapers and periodicals and all most important Italian publishing houses and collaborates with RAI, BBC, National Geographic, Warner Music Group, Adobe, Spotify, Apple Music, Lenovo, Alipay, Domestika, Taschen, Salone Internazionale del Libro, Premio Strega, Teatro Regio di Parma, Barilla, Fedrigoni, Ferrarelle, Porsche, Bulgari, Ginori 1735, Etro.
https://www.instagram.com/elisaseitzinger/
