Artists in residence

Lena Lenček

Lena Lencek grew up on the Adriatic in a family of writers, artists, and professors, who cultivated and shaped her dual passion for art and literature. A graduate of Barnard College and Harvard University, she is Professor of Russian and Humanities, an acclaimed author of 12 books, a published illustrator, and a translator, most recently of the Russian Pavel Muratov’s magisterial Images of Italy. Speaker of six languages, she is in constant demand as a public speaker and commentator on her wide-ranging areas of expertise. She has traveled the world, sketchbook in hand, to produce paintings and drawings that have been praised for their “technical mastery, expressive power, and ecstatic colors” and their “ability to distill the genius loci of place and to evoke in the viewer a mood of rapturous joy”.

Jen Polillo

Jen Polillo is an art educator and award-winning multidisciplinary artist who is compelled to wander, observe the beauty in the commonplace, and is drawn to explore the emotional qualities of light and atmosphere through her work en plein air, studio paintings, and photographs.

“I am incredibly honoured to return to Borgo Santo Pietro for the month of June, where I can become totally immersed in the Tuscan light and landscape. I look forward to wandering Borgo’s expansive grounds with my paint box and camera, as well as chasing the ever-changing light cast on the magnificent Valle Serena.”

Jennifer Sabella

Born in Wesport (CT) into an artistic family, today Jennifer resides in Litchfield, CT where she keeps her studio and workshop, just a short distance from the city that provided her early artistic attraction and inspiration.

Among Jennifer’s signature works are her vibrant “drips” or color streams, which in a gravity-driven process integrate line after line, layer after layer of different hues into evocative striped canvases that are rich, vibrant and undeniably textural. This same commanding play of color and texture evolves dramatically in her abstract landscapes and mosaic creations as well. Always drawing the viewer into a world of surprising world of light, color, texture and unexpected elements.

Kathy Miller

Using ink, watercolour, collage and camera, Kathy Miller abstracts natural and imagined landscapes, exploring and communicating the substance of the immaterial, of experience, and of transformation. Thirty years as a typographer and designer guide her hand while significant and profound life experiences provide a deep inner compass. A much-awarded creative director known for instinctive contextual thinking, imaginative discovery is at the heart of her practice. Miller explores what lies unseen in the liminal spaces of time between real and imagined, dreams and memories.

Silvia Bairo

Silvia is a creative wild soul born in a small seaside town in Italy. Her work focuses on fashion and lifestyle, she loves to experiment and mix different techniques, both digital and traditional. She studied graphic design in Milan and animation in Spain. She was recently selected for an illustration residency at SVA in New York. Although her work is mainly oriented on illustration, her graphic background characterizes her artistic style making it personal and unique, with particular attention to colors and textures.