Above the rainbow

“Disabled” is a meager word of joy even in sound. Life is very hard for such people. And because they are deprived of the possibility of normal communication, and because others are often indifferent to their worries and problems. I like the conversion adopted in some Orthodox churches much more - differently gifted. The Italian designer Anni Tronko is one of these absolutely unearthly creatures who descended from nowhere. She is out of touch with reality just like her shoes. And through her works, you can look into the world that is higher than the rainbow.

Annie started painting when she was 15 years old. She studied at an art school and majored in graphics. And she lived in a space traditional for an artist - galleries, art dealers, exhibitions. First she exhibited in Italy, then abroad. Frequent trips to America opened Annie to the world of pop art. This artistic direction appeared in art in the 50s of the last century. Its fundamental difference is that when creating canvases, along with brushes and paints, artists use photographs and stuffed animals, tin cans and state flags. One of the icons of Pop Art is a photograph of Marilyn Monroe, repeated several times in different colors. Art critics immediately saw a deep meaning in the ideas of pop art: “Entering into extraordinary combinations, a thing is freed from its utilitarian function, acquiring a symbolic function. Changing contexts creates semantic transformations, a play of meanings. "

In fact, it all started much easier. One of the luminaries of this trend, American Robert Rauschenberg, at an exhibition in New York in 1963 spoke about the creation of his first painting "Bed". He woke up early in May morning, eager to get to work. There was a desire, but there was no canvas. I had to sacrifice a quilt - in the summer you can do without it. An attempt to splatter the blanket with paint did not give the desired effect: the mesh pattern took the paint away. The pillow worked better - it gave the white surface needed to highlight the color. The artist did not set himself any other tasks.

However, Annie Tronko was more interested in Andy Warhol - mannered, eccentric and plastic. Partly attracted by the coincidence in biographical details. Warhol, like Annie, felt different from childhood. In the third grade, after being ill with scarlet fever, he was bedridden for many years. It was then that his passion for collages began, little Andy spent hours cutting, gluing, redrawing. Already in the early works of Warhol, not only the caustic irony of the future master was manifested, but also a rare ability to create new relationships between ordinary things. In his collages, Batman lowered a powerful wing over the shoulder of the Prince of Wales waving a tennis racket, Greta Garbo walked down the aisle with Mickey Mouse, a gangster killed in a shootout grew over a fur coat, a cap and a Santa Claus beard, and a joyfully smiling US president looked out of a bag of gifts.

Influenced by Warhol's work, Anna decided to become a designer, turning clothes, shoes and furniture into a painting. It was not so difficult for her to change the direction of her creativity - from paintings to industrial design. If only because the art of her favorite pop art was closely intertwined with trade advertising. As in advertising, the main subjects of Pop Art were cars, refrigerators, vacuum cleaners, hair dryers, sausages, ice cream, cakes, mannequins and, of course, shoes. Only unlike the hopeless pessimist Warhol, Annie is a person from the solar world, she radiates energy. And her shoes, by and large, are just a smile frozen in the leather, joy hidden in lace and fun woven from fabric. For people like her, these are everyday shoes. For everyone else - for special occasions.

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For Annie, art is a dream of transformation. Its first principle is to be, not to seem. The second principle is to be yourself. It is very difficult for a person with disabilities to do this. But her cloudy period, fortunately, passed, she was able to overcome all the limitations, external and internal. “Now I want to live in order to paint,” says the artist. “For me, painting is a special genre of communication that reaches every heart. Only those who do not listen are really deaf both in heart and mind. " Through paintings she wants to show her little discoveries - about people, about the world, about the soul.

Annie's design comes up with herself. Sewing models help her in traditional small Italian factory-studios. She started creating shoes almost five years ago, before that she made clothes and furniture, now she is passionately involved in glasses and bags.

Annie was lucky to be born into a good family, where she was educated from childhood, where she is supported even now. Fortune is not so favorable to other people who are deaf, so Annie tries to draw public attention to the problems of the deaf and dumb by telling and showing their lives. On some pairs of sports shoes, she reproduces the Italian alphabet of gestures - Lingua dei Segni Italiana (LIS). On each pair he draws a letter and the corresponding combination of fingers. Gradually, an independent line of shoes, Alphabet, grew out of individual models (Anni Tronko has three of them in total). The designer calls this trend moda sociale ("social fashion"). Now 60 thousand people communicate with the help of sign alphabet, Annie hopes that with its help their number will grow (and there are about 70 million hearing impaired people in the world). Recently, the alphabet of gestures in all countries has been simplified to make it more accessible to hearing people.

Annie came to Moscow to participate in the MosShoes exhibition. According to her, to understand what Russian women like. As a result, she aroused great interest among her Italian colleagues, who came to her stand, gasped with delight and admired the color scheme. However, our ladies, too, did not disregard Annie's models. Although, it is clear that we are not talking about standard distribution and sales in stores - each pair is single, and the cost of delivery in Russia will make the price astronomical. But her shoes are interesting as a phenomenon not so much in commerce as in social life.

PS When in August 1962 it became known about the suicide of Marilyn Monroe, Andy Warhol, in hot pursuit, created the so-called "orange" portrait of "the blonde of all times and peoples." In 1998, at Sotheby's auction, the "orange Marilyn", which by that time had become a classic of pop art, was sold for $ 15,5 million. Perhaps some of Annie Tronko's art objects will cost the same in a couple of decades ...