SEMADAR: An International Artist for Us All
Now an internationally famous artist, Semadar – full name Santina Semadar Panetta – had been drawing up her dreams since she was a young child – literally. The Italian social media star who currently resides in Canada and has had her works exhibited around the world, is on a mission to ensure that true artistry lives on while explaining what it means to be a woman in the industry. Hint: there aren’t that many that have made it to where she is, but she hopes to change that while empowering artists from all over the world. Semadar’s path always pointed to neo-pointillism, and she hasn’t stopped painting outside the lines since.
With over 300,000 followers, she might be a social media star, but Semadar insists she didn’t set out to create art for the money or fame. Rather, such things couldn’t help but seek her out due to her skills and talent. This world famous artist, who attempts to convey the spiritual realm which surrounds us, emigrated to Canada before turning 15 and knows just where she stands. “I’m proud to be a Canadian, but also proud to be a human being in this universe because art has no boundaries, so I go where my art is. Over the past 15 years, her art has taken her all over the globe. Perhaps her destiny was written – or painted in the stars. “Ever since I can remember, since I was six years old, I never had a day in my life when I would not study something, create, draw. It’s a passion that you just have no choice but to follow.” She quickly learned just how true that proved to be when after graduating a journalism program at a young age, she realized that while you can be good at something, it doesn’t mean it’s your cup of tea. “When you have a burning passion, passion always prevails.”
Those who are closest to her know this best. After all, she is often so consumed with her painting that she doesn’t notice the time going by, whether it’s studying or in her studio, so her close group of friends from over 25 years are grateful for the precious time they get to spend with her.
For Semadar, her work is meant to invoke a feeling for the observer, whatever that might be. “My objective is very important in my artwork because classicism was all about the church and religious aspects, but my artwork is extremely spiritual. It has nothing to do with religion, it has to do with the universe, our existence. I glorify in my paintings paradise on earth. I mean, what else is more beautiful than a great sunset? The power of the universe is incredible, you just cannot stop the rain or the the birds from flying and always the the sun is rising someplace.” Her complex work can make you contemplate the philosophical, such as your place in the world, even the ending of it all, but without any religious tone. She enjoys that her works are able to awaken in people these good feelings about the universe and as she says, “how we should take care of it.” She fondly recalled how one admirer of her work felt that the pieces brought her back to happy times when she was a child.
She might have always known that she had a creative destiny awaiting her, but it wasn’t until one international incident put her on a serious painting path. “September 11thchanged my life. It really touched me and I said to myself, ‘life is so fragile, I could have been in one of those buildings. So I said, enough is enough, I am going to be searching for a proper school to make sure that I get the academic knowledge that I need.” Staying true to that six-year-old girl inside of her that was always drawn to drawing, she knew that to master her craft she would have to learn the main points of how to be an artist. After all, all she wanted was for her name and work to live on forever, a lesson she learned at the tender age of 14. She remembers being in awe when upon visiting a museum in Athens after winning a scholarship, she realized that despite the artists’ being dead for thousands of years, they were still very much alive, and we were still talking about them today. “I said I want to be like that. My name will be eternal. I’m going to live forever. My teachers loved it because I was not only the youngest in the class due to skipping a couple of grades, but I was also the smallest and the blondest. They believed that I could do it, so I always had an inner feeling that I really would.”
While searching for the right school in Canada proved to be complicated, she was able to find a fit at an academy where the master was from none other than the Sorbonne in Paris. After six months of being ignored, it only took one sentence to get her master’s attention. “In one class I said ‘I am immortal, and that was that.” He proposed a difficult program for me to enroll in that is usually taught in universities in Europe.” It might have been a five year program, but she completed it in four and a half – with honors, no less. “It was a fantastic ride, I learned a lot and if I didn’t have those studies, I wouldn’t be where I am today.””I had to really go in depth to learn all the rhetoric, all the language, on how did these great masters create art that we still talk about today? How did Leonaro Davinci create the Mona Lisa? I went through the 5,000 years of art history and I still feel that I don’t know enough. She did, however, learn enough about different schools of art, including one she wanted to explore most. While she explained how classical art utilizes dark colors, the impressionists made it their mission to remove the rules of the classists in order to ensure that they wrote their own history. “The impressionists created a whole new movement, and they did it in three phases. I enjoy pointillism. I was so in love with it that I studied George Seurat and Maurice Sendak, and I knew that I would love to continue this language.” My master said well, maybe three or four people worldwide will understand what you do.” In true Semadar fashion, she decided to go ahead and give it a shot – or a brush stroke.She continued to do what she does best to become the queen of her craft – study. She found herself learning everything about polychromy synthesis – the study of all the relations and interactions of colors. “You essentially write your painting in a thesis, but it’s a very complex study including two years of studying colors. I can’t explain myself why my colors are so clear. I was taught that your colors are only as clean as your soul, so if you have a clean soul, it shows up on your canvas. When I’m not happy I cannot paint. I always like to demonstrate the most beautiful aspect of our existence and our planet.”
Her first exhibition, entitled Semadar Post-Symbolism, was her way of demonstrating the first five books of the Torah. Her goal was to combine symbolism and intellectual ideas, as well as an approach that would aesthetically resemble post-impressionism. A rabbi even made sure to get her works archived so that students in universities can study them. That was a stepping stone to the creation of Neo-Pointillism. At the very first exhibit in New York, my first critic said that I had upped the chromatics in a style that my predecessor is talking about, something the other impressionists did not do – so that is the difference. I still have this great passion, so I don’t know what else I’m going to do. Still, rather than pressure, I simply have this feeling that I have that I have to create and move forward.”
Her mission is, and has always been, for people to understand and appreciate art – no shock factors needed. “I know maybe a lot of people will not like my mission because not everybody likes to think of art as a rhetoric, but you write a painting the same way you write a story or a letter and in order to do that you have to study. I’m not a fan of people that just throw paint on the canvas and say ‘look how great I am,’ or do shocking things to get attention.” It’s safe to say that she wasn’t a fan of the banana on the wall stunt at Art Basel circa 2019. Rather than fame, it’s about achieving her ultimate goal which she’s been obsessed with since she was a young teenager: immortality. She would much prefer her art be also be contemplated many years from now. “I want people, years from now, to be able to look at my artwork and understand what was happening at the time.”It’s no wonder that the last person to really impress her was Andy Warhol. And if you don’t know how to speak about your work, or have knowledge of your craft, don’t expect her to take you seriously.
She just wants to bring traditions back, to the time when artists were the ones educating the public. She even had to learn new languages, including revising her native tongue of Italian, to truly grasp all of the materials she consumed. She is also passionate about inspiring others who want to learn art without a prohibitive price tag by offering affordable masterclasses in an attempt to educate those who write to her on a daily basis, asking how she achieves such clean colors, etc.
Other works of hers have since also been published and studied, proof that she is already being immortalized – and perhaps even more important to her, she is hoping that more people will follow in her mission. While one major piece she had done on commission wound up being stolen before it was successfully located, she laughs it off as a sign that she must be doing something right. Something else that plagues the art world is scams, but as Semadar confirms, not even she can reproduce her works. Perhaps it’s because of everything that goes into every single original piece. It can, after all, take her 50,000 or 60,000 brush strokes until she completes one piece. She might make a small sketch and analyze her ideas in her head before hitting the canvas, but she usually continues to get inspired during the process.
The fact she has made it in the art world is even more impressive when taken into consideration that she is the only woman artist mentioned in an art encyclopedia. It was my REAL moment. I made it! The publication of the encyclopedia was in honor of my “Leonardo Da Vinci Honorary Award in 2018” with more than 15 pages, and it was the very first time that a woman remained in Art History for creating a new style, or movement.
She is also excited for her upcoming exhibition at Carlton Fine Arts on Madison Avenue in New York City., where she is the only female painter to be featured in the famed gallery since they opened in 1969. She hopes she is going to change that.
