Art has become a trend tied to a race for stories and likes. It seems rare today to find an artist—or perhaps the creator in the modern term—who creates art to stand the test of time and who sees no point in just going with the flow because that is the way things are done in this digital era. Rare, but I found one.
Interviewing an Arist
I will be honest, I had no idea Silvio Rusmigo even existed until about a month ago when I was commissioned to write an article about him and his work as an outdoor photographer in Cyprus. I sent him an email asking if I could interview him, he said yes, and the date was set. I called, and there was this very welcoming and big “hi, how are you?” on the other side of the phone. My day wasn’t going so well until that point, but it got a lot better in that minute. Silvio spoke just like me, used the language of my generation, and we talked about normal day-to-day things at the beginning.
Aside: in my career, I have spoken to politicians, officials, organization leaders, business owners, you can pretty much name it, and those few minutes at the start of a conversation are the compass of the interview. They set the tone for that short relationship between the two. If the relationship is good – for these more personal types of interviews – then the article will be all the better for it. But not everyone shows you their human side. Some will ask more questions than you and make it seem like they are doing you a favour. So, in that perspective and in light of my recent conversations with Silvio -three so far – I guess the art of being an artist is to know what you do is good, have recognition for it, and still maintain that human quality.
Silvio Rusmigo: The Man Behind the Lens
So what do you need to know about him before we dig deeper into his humanity and artistic integrity?
- He has Italian, English, and Cypriot blood running through his veins.
- He was born and brought up in Cyprus and was surrounded by National Geographic magazines growing up.
- He knew photography was the sure route for him after taking an interior design course. Funny, but taking photos of the inside made him want to explore the outside even more.
- He also does commercial photography, but it still has to follow his work ethic. He will still try to bring Cyprus into the forefront here.
- He does not just take photos of the nature of Cyprus to take a pretty picture, he does it to preserve our heritage and help with nature conservation. He also takes them to capture that love for nature that others feel – but more about that later.
The Meaning Behind the Photographs
Sivlio must have said ‘you know’ about 50 times in the span of about 40 minutes. When you speak to people, you pick up on their (sorry, but there is no other way to say this) catchphrases. I had a friend who used to say ‘you know what I mean?’ at the end of every sentence and it pissed me off. Yes, I know what you mean, I am not stupid. When Silvio did it, it was not a question, it was a fact. He knew I knew what he was talking about. I did, after all, introduce myself to him and we had that part at the beginning where his human quality gave me the chance to be very truthful about how I see art. So me ‘knowing’ meant he knew his audience.
I had seen some of his photographs on his Instagram page and I could see the beauty in them, but after chatting to the man who probably took hundreds of shots on the same day before publishing just a few, I saw much more. I saw the connection between his art and mine, I saw how the process of writing poetry is similar to that of taking professional photographs. You create in the moment when everything is in front of you, you take the information you have about the subject and you create.
I asked him about the unseen Cyprus and how he goes about taking photographs of it and his answer was the kind of answer that surprises me and brings a whole new creative perspective into focus. I knew then that I would write about his art in more detail, I knew there was poetry in this.
So, what was his answer?
Here it is:
“I don’t go purposely looking for things that are either unseen or unfound. I don’t seek to discover something. What I do do is create images that describe how I feel about a certain place and what I find fascinating about it.”
How about the inspiration behind the photos? This is where his work with people who fight to preserve wildlife came in. His wife is one of them and others are some of his very good friends. Here, he said that they are not just projects to him, they are situations which he lives with in his home. “I see the passion they have, I see them giving their all to save these things. Now that is inspiration.”
Then his work with archeologists, scientists, biologists, and rock climbers came up. The meaning behind the photos got even clearer.
“Like with the rock climbers I am working with now. We just see rocks but when you work closely with climbers you start to see why they are fascinated with the rock and you see it differently and in that knowledge, you are then able to create images that translate differently to people. You need to know the meaning behind the image.”
An image is not just an image. A painting is not just a painting. A poem is not just a poem. Not until you look into it further, until it is linked to someone, not until it drips with passion and the sort of meaning that each human longs for.
Far From the Madding Digital Race
I went to a fortune teller once, a long, long time ago. She told me things come later to me, but they do come. She was right, and this memory came back to me when I asked Silvio about the photos for his coffee table book Aspelia Naturalis. A book full of images of natural Cyprus that cover a time span of 15-years. I asked him if there were any difficulties he faced while taking the photos. He said ‘of course,’ like I knew anything about climbing mountains to take photos – I take photos of my kids, now that can be difficult.
But it was not the description about walking through snow and rain that reminded me that things come late to me, it was the description about holding onto those images for 15 years that instantly felt like an echo of my own artistic process. “The biggest challenge is the years it took to make. Believing there was something worth doing. It was a huge risk, it was the first of its kind so mentally I was in a position where I was holding all this back because I thought it was worth a publication.”
There is more… wait for it.
“In the digital age, everyone is rushing to get things out. We have become very fast-paced, but it is really not like this. People who do work that matters still take years to do it but because we are bombarded by creations from the whole planet you think things are fast-paced but quality work still isn’t, it is still a slow-paced thing. You have to put in the time.”
So, respectfully, dear artist, if you have already spent time on a piece of work, if you have poems in the draw, scripts on your desk wearing coffee stains, if you have paintings in your attic that have not yet seen the light of day, it is ok. We hold onto those things that matter the most because, like our children, we want to make sure they are ready to face the world. The time will come and it will be the right time… we have to be the ones who believe that first.
