Check Out Bettina Madini’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Bettina Madini.

Hi Bettina, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today.
I was born in Berlin, during times of the Cold War, walls, and political instability. My family, being extremely protective, stirred me into the financial sector, although I had shown great interest and talent in acting and in art and had success as a teenage actress. The world of art, from their point of view, was only for a few selected, and that would mean impossible hardship and danger for their child. So, I learned early that I had to find my own way.

After finishing college, I was on a promising career path in the Corporate Financial World. My inner being, though, was yearning for creative expression, and that inner voice grew stronger with each day. One Friday in 1992 in Luxembourg, late in the afternoon, my trajectory took a new turn when I joined the Conservatory of Music and, shortly after, the Ecole d’Art Contemporain, the School of Contemporary Art. I studied Fine Art in Luxembourg at the Ecole d’Art Contemporain with Jean-Marc Tosello, in the evenings and on weekends. Via singing and painting, I found my voice and creative expression, and doors for future possibilities were beginning to open. Looking back, I can see that it was an artistic breakthrough. I started my journey of becoming me and weaving my own, unique magical carpet.

In 2003, I leaped again and left the Corporate World in Luxembourg to go to New York City. I studied art at the National Academy of Fine Art and Design with Susan Shatter, Sharon Sprung, Henry Finkelstein, and Wolf Kahn. My deep search for expressive color and light has led me on a journey across different painting media that are universes to me. Oil painting, watercolor, pastel, acrylic painting, and silk painting, of them, are different languages that allow me to express light and joy.

The journey never ends! I currently study with Ronnie Landfield at the Art Students League in New York City.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It was not a smooth road for me, but I wonder what road is ever smooth? Aren’t there always unexpected twists and turns, fallen trees, and changing circumstances? I had to learn to un-do many points of view that I had grown into with my family, schoolmates, teachers, and society at large. Points of view of what it means to be an artist, points of view around money (starving artist syndrome), basically always the impossibility rather than the possibility. Points of view about life, time, age, and the list goes on.

I was never really supported to find what I would like to do or who I would like to be in the world. My parents did the best that they could, with the means that they had, so no blame here. They were not supported in finding their own strength and outlet. Breaking through these judgments and ‘no!’s’ into ‘What would I like to create and be?’ took all my courage. The journey of becoming is both challenging and rewarding. I started learning that I know what I would like to choose and that that would be ok and supported.

And, of course, moving to a different continent had its own challenges, uptown, downtown, the “How-to” of things. I have many funny stories! My universe was expanding so fast, that I had to catch up with it, and my head was buzzing! But I had my space to go to: Art School. It got me through the greatest challenges of my life. And I’m so grateful for the amazing people that I met that helped me through the toughest moments. The universe truly has my back!

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
What interests me the most is color. Color and its manifold combinations, mixes, and energies, are such joy to me! I started my artistic journey with the desire to paint light. I was very lucky to have always had great teachers who taught me about color. I received a profound education in Kandinsky’s Color Theory and a direct connection with my body, learning to sense color with my body, to know via my body when things are not quite finished and when they are finished. Basically, creating with my body as a sensor, receptor, and transmitter. While I have painted in different mediums, whether it’s oil, pastel, watercolor, or acrylic, while I choose different subject matters, whether floral, waterscapes or abstract, color is the main theme that runs through it all like a song. Discovering silk painting added yet another dimension to my body of work, and it allows me to create incredible light, very much like shining jewels.

In 2018, I expanded again and launched my own line of Wearable Art labeled ‘Magical Bodies.’ I design leggings, dresses, silk scarves, skirts, and more with my original paintings. Cheers to the joy of embodiment!

What I’m known for? Hmm, not sure, but people always tell me that my paintings are so free and joyful. Many people actually join my classes to find more free expression in their lives and in their art studios. I’m rather un-dogmatic and believe that the artist is in us. It’s an innate desire in human beings to express our experience here on earth. And joy is the catalyst, joy is the compass. When we follow what’s joyful for us and so easy, then we’re on a magical ride. We tend to make that insignificant though and go for what’s hard to do. As if hardship is more valuable.

It’s not. Ease and elegant effortlessness are beautifully expressed. What would I like to be remembered for? Having brought light and joy into people’s lives, having inspired a different way of being in the world. A sense of possibility and the knowing that we can be anything and anyone we would like to be. We can create with the earth a benevolent, colorful future with gratitude, respect, allowance, peace, and masterful stewardship.

Do you have recommendations for books, apps, blogs, etc?
Everything has changed so dynamically, and so many new pathways have shown up in these past years. And doesn’t it seem like change is faster and faster, meaning what was relevant yesterday is not so much any longer today, what inspired me yesterday has vanished, to make space, now, at the moment, for something else? An impulse, a sentence, a word. Among my favorite books are old-timers such as ‘The Little Prince’ by Antoine de Saint Exupery, ‘Color’ by Kandinsky, and ‘A Course in Miracles’. They have contributed to my journey, like pearls on the path. A book loaded with amazing tools is ‘Being You – Changing the World’ by Dr. Dain Heer. And I really enjoy the ‘Consciousness Anywhere’ Podcast with Shannon O’Hara.

Currently, my favorite book, app, and podcast are called “nature.” Going outdoors, walking, breathing, receiving from the trees, listening to the melting snow, gargling waters, bird song, and wind dancing in the leaves. It’s the book that I’m reading each moment. The space and beauty of nature bring things right back into perspective. Headiness disappears for joy, and tiredness is forgotten. So amazing how the book of nature always has new, fresh chapters.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.bettinamadini.art/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bettinamadini/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BettinaMadiniFineArt
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCW26GkezVM_FvX2muAWclpQ
• SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/bettina-madini
• Other: https://magicalbodies.com/

Image Credits
Stephanie Richardson