Virgola: character that was born on the Instagram
Virginia Azzurra Di Giorgio also known as Virgola is an illustrator based in Florence, Italy. Becoming one of the most popular visual artists in Italy, she now collaborates with the new lifestyle brand Creame. Her illustrations are lovely, meaningful poems that become more popular and loved by her fans every day.
The main character in your illustrations is a girl, who is she and what is her story?
She’s just the visual part of my thoughts, the one that completes my thinking when I can’t finish a sentence or a song’s line. That’s why she is such an abstract character. The white parts can be filled with your imagination. I only draw a feminine character, without any intention to pursuing any political consideration about gender. I more likely prefer to associate her as a projection of the innermost part of me, the one that I most hide and dislike, a less cynical and more dreamy part of me that still believe in the so-called “unfashionable” values.
A couple of days ago you have celebrated a birthday of “Virgola”, before Virgola, did you have a different style of illustrating? How did you invent name Virgola?
I used to have a completely different style of illustrating. As a matter of fact, I used to love to make still life, watercolor, and charcoal drawings. Something more traditional, and perhaps more ordinary, that gave me the necessary skills especially to through the observation of volumes and lines.
Drawing Virgola maybe seems to be a very easy process, and perhaps it is. For me, the breakthrough achievement was to gain this kind of level of abstraction and bidimensionality; It wouldn’t be done without these fundamentals.
The name Virgola has come from a nickname that my father used to call me occasionally. I choose it by chance at the time I was creating my Instagram registration. Then I simply adopted it for my character. It was simply a fortunate coincidence.
In every illustration you use 3-dimensional elements, could you tell us more about this unique technique?
Virgola was born on the Instagram, which is a social network for photography, and as such I used it like an amateur. Once I wanted to take a very ordinary picture of my breakfast on a rainy day and I draw two little legs and an umbrella to a cookie to represent myself: a bit clumsy, gluttonous and ironic person. Since that rainy day, I started to experiment with my works in this direction simply because I find it amusing. That’s how my character was born.
Do you listen to music when you illustrate and if yes, what kind of?
Absolutely yes, I do it all the time. Often, I am listening something that adds an energizing edge to my working hours and keeps my mind active and perceptive. So I frequently listen to hip hop music but I do also enjoy very much Amy Winehouse.
In one of your last posts on Facebook you have mentioned that you are preparing some illustrations for 2016 calendar, could you tell us more about it?
For the third year in a row, I am drawing and publishing my calendar online for free. I usually don’t like to give away my time and my works for free, but, in this case, I think it is a good way to present my followers with a smile and also to keep the clients as faithful customers, at least for the next twelve months! My followers really enjoy it, and that’s why every year I’m happy to make a new calendar.
People adore your artworks and you have so many followers and fans on the social media — are you happy about your success, how important is other people’s support to you?
I’m clearly very proud of it, but I keep myself grounded since I know that people change their tastes following fashion trends, and that’s why my character always evolve, cause I hope to never publish something already seen. My followers’ support is as necessary for me as the applause for a dancer when the show is over; that’s the required charge for the next work. Without that support, I wouldn’t achieve not even half of my goals, and I feel very lucky because many of them are such a wonderful people.
