About

Artist Statment

Almudena Rocca is a multi-disciplinary artist. In the last few years, she has been developing her skills using a variety of materials including metal, glass, clay, wood, digital photography, pen and pencil.
Often her designs will start with a continuous line drawing and then develop into a piece of 3D work.
Inspiration comes from a very personal interest in mental ill-health, politics, feminism and the role of women in art in today’s society.
Having worked in a number of socially engaging art projects where the practice is based on the principles of collective working, diversity and inclusion Almudena has come to realise that this is the environment in which she wishes to develop her work. An environment where sharing and collaboration of an art practice contribute to mental ill-health recovery and emotional good health and well-being.
Almudena has already designed and sold a number of illustrations that are now exhibited in a space used to support young women living with anorexia and bulimia. 
Almudena is currently working with a number of businesses both here and in America that create clothing that carries positive messages of mental wellbeing. Her designs have been used on sweatshirts, T-shirts and caps. In the future, she hopes to develop her own brand of clothing with her illustrations and designs.
In her last year of college, Almudena has had a “eureka” moment in which she has come to realise that the work she has been making is connected very deeply to her relationship with her older sister. This work has culminated in the sculpture you see before you. Almudena is represented by the lower of the two heads looking directly at and reaching out to the higher head that represents her sister. The higher head does not rest her gaze on the lower head but looks away. Almudena reaches out to her sister because she feels she has lost her sister since being a teenager to depression. As a teenager growing up Almudena often felt she did not have a sister. She has seen her sister struggle with friends, family and doctors, not able to communicate her needs, losing her voice and Almudena feels she has been unable to support her sister. That is why now she creates work that carries positive messages about mental health and hopefully opens positive dialogue.
The coloured glass within the sculpture is an influence of the artists Amy Whiten and Fraysor Taylor who both use bold colour to enhance their work. In Almudena’s piece, the colours are primary colours linked to emotions, red being anger, blue…. calmness, green….. jealousy, and yellow…… anxiety and sickness. Emotions we all go through in our relationships with each other. 
The natural sunlight that comes in through the windows picks up the colours of the glass and casts their shadow around the room changing their shape, giving a sense of time to the piece. Time changes our emotions, changes their shape and structure then ultimately changes our feelings within the relationship. The sunlight can pick up on one particular colour such as red which fills the room and it represents anger casting the redness over the whole room. 
Ideally, Almudena would like to see both heads looking at each other and seeing each other bathed in blue calmness where through the calmness develops a space created to communicate with each other, being able to “hear” and listen to each other, then thus being able to understand what it is to walk in each other’s shoes and with that understanding gain a more connected relationship.