V.N: What’s the first thing someone needs to understand about you before they look at your work, if anything?
S.B: I make art to express myself, I don’t follow trends, I don’t follow money, it’s not a piece to fit your couch… I chase my own vision.
V.N: Before we get into the work, who were you before you became someone who makes things?
S.B: When I was a kid I was already drawing, towards the end of middle school I was spray painting, after that I got into fine art high school. Creativity was always present, the difference is that now I am more aware, more determined…
V.N: When did committing to art full-time stop being hypothetical and become the plan?
S.B: I realized it when I started believing in myself. Working as a sculptor full time helped.
It was 6 or 7 years ago. Settling down in Amsterdam, having my girlfriend and friends believing in me also helped a lot.
V.N: Your work runs through painting, sculpture, street art and illustrations; and I’m sure more. In spite of this there is something always recognisable, distinctly yours – be it conceptually or aesthetically. What artists or scenes shaped you as an artist? Honestly, don’t tell us what the investors want to hear.
S.B: In my youth I was influenced by Hans Ruedi
Giger, Francis Bacon. I like their rawness, the discomfort in their images. I was also fascinated by the realism and the darkness in the paintings of Caravaggio. I was captivated by the distortions and weirdness in different cartoons (Cow and Chicken, Ed, Edd n Eddy, Looney Tunes, Tom and Jerry…) that I was watching on Cartoon Network each time I was going in Poland, Warsaw, for the summer holiday. The street art scene in Vercelli, my hometown in Italy, introduced me to spray cans and the wide range of artistic styles. The music I was listening to was also shaping my imagination: Slipknot, System of a Down, Korn, Metallica, Linkin Park, Limp Bizkit, Eminem… Life was not easy, that had its influence too.
V.N: The world’s been losing it recently over the integration of A.I in our every day life. Many people feel this means at best a shift and at worst a complete eradication of the way we produce art and even what it means to call something art. As a multifaceted artist, which artistic medium feels most honest to you right now ?
S.B: I think there has already been a complete eradication of what it means to call something art even before A.I. arrived. A banana selling for millions, doing Duchamp all over again; people choosing art based on the color of the interiors and galleries providing that kind of “hotel art” for the only purpose of profiting; soulless business men marketing themselves as artists while having a studio employing real artists creating from 0 to 100 their “artistic vision”…
There is more, go and take a walk in a contemporary museum, go and check what they are doing and teaching in some art schools or look at whom they are giving grants to… But that is my personal view I guess. Learn the skills and break the rules, now is mostly break the rules while having 0 artistic skills. I think the honesty depends from the process an artist went through to create the artwork.
V.N: What does “authenticity” mean to you in our often over-performative era?
S.B: The focus on materializing an artistic vision rather than the market, getting followers, money… Authenticity is making my own art rather than having AI or others generating it for me.
V.N: What would surprise people about how you actually work, do you have a process?
S.B: I usually sketch on paper using pencils, ball point pens and markers and after that I paint on canvas or walls. If I paint on canvas
I sometimes use procreate on my tablet to play out different shadows, shapes or source of light to see how those would look before proceeding.
V.N: What question do people never ask you about your work, but should?
S.B: I think nobody ever asks about the process in detail.
V.N: Is there a core idea, an obsession that you keep coming back to, even when you think you’ve moved past it ?
S.B: There are recurring elements in my art but I don’t intend to move past them. They evolve with me and the progression of my skills.
V.N: Is there a tension between the art you want to make and the art people expect from you?
S.B: People expect art to be pleasing rather than confrontational. Confrontational is often what I like to do.
V.N: Why Amsterdam?
S.B: I was hitchhiking around Europe. I stopped in Belgium for a week. One evening while having a few
beers with some acquaintances I decided to roll a dice to choose where to go and possibly settle. I asked everyone at the table to choose a number and a place, 16 – Amsterdam. The day after I hitchhiked my way to Amsterdam, I arrived to Nieuwmarkt with a backpack and more or less 200 euros in my pocket.
V.N: What’s the most realistic challenge for artists like yourself in 2025 that people don’t talk about enough?
S.B: Finding a studio for an affordable price. Having a space for creating art makes it much easier to use techniques that are messy or unsafe and to scale up the work.
V.N: Do you keep everything you make, or are you quick to throw things out?
S.B: I keep almost everything. I like to go through old sketches or older work and get inspired.
V.N: Is there a subject matter you avoid, not because of fear, but because it’s too over-politicized to say anything honest about?
S.B: Not really…
V.N: Is there something you want to tackle in the future but haven’t had the chance to yet?
S.B: I find the paintings of Christian Rex van Minnen incredible. I bought his book, Massa Confusa. I want to study the way he renders skin and gelatine like materials in his work. He is still alive and making incredible art, for me he is at the level of the Old Masters. I want to keep improving my technical knowledge and apply it to my artworks. There are a lot of ideas that I want to follow but it is hard to make a choice. I would like to make a cartoony marble sculpture, or to make realistic portraits with a political message using paper mache, or to make some really twisted portraits or cartoony twisted characters with oil paint… Sketching will help me finding the right idea to continue with.
V.N: What would you like a prospective biography about you to be called?
S.B: Simone Bordignon Różycki, Niet Normaal. 🙂 /
Simone Bordignon Różycki, Tensioni. / Simone Bordignon Różycki, Alterations.
V.N: If you had to pick a fight with an artist (Ai-Wei-Wei for instance) who would you take a swing at first ?
S.B: I wouldn’t waste my time on them. They are not even worth mentioning. Don’t get me wrong, they are making money, but Trump is the president and Elon might be the first Trillionaire so I wouldn’t use money to determine someone’s worth or success.
