Chiara Dattola defines herself as a creative nomad. In 2000 she initiates her professional career in the field of editorial illustration, design and art. Over the years she works for important publishing companies and international brands, she realizes original pieces, gaining many recognitions.
Ambientha starts collaborating with Chiara Dattola in January 2019 for the realization of artistic wallpapers. Her first wallpaper design about the Climate Conscious theme , suggested by Ambientha, has been introduced at Fuorisalone 2019 where Ambientha has made its debut at Milan Design Market , in the engaging context of Isola Design District .
Ambientha interviews Chiara Dattola
Tell us something about you, which are the passions you can’t live without?
I’m passionate of many things, maybe too much. But my major interests are definitely drawing, listening to music, boxing (I’ve been practicing it for 6 years) and reading. I’ve recently actually realized I could never live without drawing. That’s my language, the mean through which I connect with the outside world and the other people.
Was there a specific moment or event that prompted your career in the world of arts and illustration?
My first thinking at illustration has been at the age of 16. I thought I wanted to find the career I loved, capable of combining my passion for design and the economic aspect, meaning being able to live with it.
How do your designs take shape? What lies at the core of the creative process?
The creative process which stays ahead the creation of a new design is really long and complex. Specifically, the conceiving part is long. I’ve an “underlying mind”, which stands beneath the one handling the everyday matters. And it’s exactly the former “underlying mind” which gives birth to designs.
I realize she’s always working and often in a fairly mysterious way for me. But I’ve started trusting her. I just know I need to feed her in the proper time and measure. She’ll absorb it and when I least expect it she’ll offer me that image, the idea I was looking for: I trust this process and I trust her.
How would you describe your style?
I don’t really like talking about “style” but rather “attitude”. The “attitude” of my designs is my own: loving and a little wild.
Your portfolio boasts notorious brands and international publishing companies, is it the first time within your career you approach interior design?
It happened to decorate some settings in the past, but never in digital, always through a traditional technique. So, wallpaper design represents my very first time.
Climate Change thematic for the first design in collaboration with Ambientha: how was your experience while working on such an actual and important topic for all of us?
Well, I did very well because I’m strongly sensitive about this topic. I’m deeply interested to the fate of the planet being this our only home. First, I’ve tried to ask myself how to reproduce the liaison between human being and environment in a design, while maintaining the technical characteristics the product should have.
Where did you take the inspiration for realizing Arctic Tundra design and its chromatic variations Subtle Tundra and Tundra Earth ?
The suggestions I got from Ambientha during the brief were of great inspiration. Therefore, I’ve literally started from the words within the Inspiration Book 2019 and later I thought of the places where nature is still strong and uncontaminated. I could think of Tundra, with all its hidden and precious richness. After that my “underlying mind” has brought me what I wanted, and more. This thematic has opened worlds of designs, even unexpected, that I hope to develop later on.
Ambientha music playlists are born as a musical accompaniment of the environments where our products belong. Which track do you think is the most suitable to go with Arctic Tundra wallpaper design?
Being ordinary I’d say Hyperballad di Björk , even so, I love the traditional Siberian music, born on the mountains, in the cold, with that guttural sounds filled with passion… which are somehow connected to the rumors of nature.
We’ve come to the end, but first, what’s your secret dream as an artist?
I crave to keep narrating my stories, whatever shape they’ll assume, words-images-sounds, and to make them arouse something in human beings. Mostly, I want to do it with the deepest honesty.
I want to keep talking to people and being in connection with their hearts. I want people to get emotional and my stories to reach the deepest layer of the skin and never go away.
I want to be a virus. But a good one, which makes you sick with kindness.
This is exactly what I want to do for the rest of my life.
