Simona Weller

Simona Weller, born in Rome on May 10, 1940, is an Italian painter whose artworks have deeply marked the contemporary artistic landscape. Her biography intertwines with a cultured educational path rich in international experiences, which have shaped an intense, reflective, and refined visual production. From the early years in Spoleto, under the influence of Leoncillo Leonardi, to studies with Ferruccio Ferrazzi and Mario Mafai, Simona Weller has built a visual poetics in which nature, memory, and word merge. Her painting is a testimony to a strong and deeply aware artistic identity.

Simona Weller painter

The path of Simona Weller as a painter begins decisively from childhood, marked by an early inclination for art cultivated during the years at the National Boarding School of Spoleto. It is here that, thanks to the guidance of the ceramist and sculptor Leoncillo Leonardi, her talent emerges. She then continues her artistic journey at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome, where she studies with some of the most representative masters of the Italian twentieth century: Ferruccio Ferrazzi, Mario Mafai, and Mino Maccari. The influence of these artists provides her with a solid technical foundation, but her painting stands out from the start for a tension towards expressive freedom.
Simona Weller deepens her artistic research through a series of fundamental travels, made possible by UNESCO scholarships: Thailand, Egypt, and Spain become crucial stops for absorbing different visual languages, which will profoundly influence her vision. After marrying Roberto Veller Fornasa, the choice to live in Umbria, immersed in nature, contributes to a change in her pictorial approach. She progressively abandons academic references to develop a personal language in which the use of enamels, inks, and fine papers gives life to evocative and silent artworks, strongly connected to the natural dimension.
In the Seventies, having returned to Rome and after the end of her marriage, Simona Weller enters a new creative phase. She begins teaching at the Academy of Fine Arts and weaves a personal and intellectual bond with the poet Cesare Vivaldi. During this period, the painter experiments with forms of visual writing: words, signs, and symbols emerge as central elements of her poetics. Her black boards, animated by colorful graffiti, represent an investigation into dreams and the unconscious, opening the way to a dialogue between text and image that will characterize many of her subsequent artworks.
Simona Weller as a painter receives important recognitions: she exhibits at the X Quadriennale of Rome and the Venice Biennale. Her works, such as the cycle “Letters from an Italian painter to Vincent Van Gogh”, express an original synthesis between painting and writing. At the same time, she dedicates herself to essay and narrative writing, also engaging in feminism and contributing to the Italian cultural debate. With a refined and never conventional language, Simona Weller has been able to unite poetic introspection with visual strength, leaving an indelible mark on the world of contemporary art.