Meet Isabella Briganti | Fine Artist & Illustrator

We had the good fortune of connecting with Isabella Briganti and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Isabella, how do you define success?
Personally, I define success through how satisfied I feel with my life. It would be naive of me to say that monetary success has no influence on this, but that is only part of it. The maintenance of my relationships, how I am spending my free time, how much energy I have, my environment– these are all factors in my overall satisfaction. For a long time I equated being the “best” (whatever that means) to being successful, but I have come to realize that using that as my only metric for success is setting myself up for disappointment. There will always be someone more productive, more technically skilled, more ambitious than me, and that’s totally fine. All I can do is my best, and if I am proud of the work that I create, then that’s enough for me. It is good to have goals and ambitions, but if I am not enjoying the time that I have, then what’s the point?

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I graduated in 2023 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Studio Practices at the University of Colorado Denver, with an emphasis in Drawing and Painting, a sub-emphasis in Illustration, and a minor in Biology. I have shown my work in quite a few exhibitions, but this to me has been the most difficult part. Being vulnerable with strangers and showing my work to them without knowing how it will be received is terrifying and intimidating, much less “being my own boss” and juggling my work life balance and motivation. Subject matter in my work can be exhausting and intense to contend with, so making sure that I am staying mentally and physically healthy is an important challenge to avoid burnout. These are ongoing challenges for me, so I can’t really say how I’ve “overcome” them so to speak, but I have managed to gain my footing through extensive journal/sketchbook practice and channeling my anxieties into the work I make.
My love of art was fostered from an early age by my family and grandfather, who was a professional cartoonist and sign painter. A majority of my art practice is based on lived experiences and adjacent associations, and I focus on introspection and reflections on the relationships we form and the unintended consequences that result from them. Although much of my work consists of oils and acrylic paintings, exploration of media and subject is something that I value and enjoy. I take every opportunity to work from life, and I enjoy compositing photographs that I take to create reference images for my paintings. Currently, my work is heavily focused on human figures communicating and interacting in mildly abstracted settings.
My illustrative work is geared towards the combination of art and science in the form of scientific illustrations using specimens I collect. I hope to work in the scientific illustration field in the spirit of educating myself and others on the wonderful and/or weird things that coexist with us in the world by cataloging my surroundings, thus further explore and depict my observations on relationships.
I have worked with galleries and artists such as Jaime Molina, Oliver Herring, and the Emmanuel Gallery. I recently completed the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver’s Creator’s Studio Internship for Summer of 2024, with a grant from a board of donors based on a project pitch for work to be produced in 2025, which will be shown in a solo showcase at the end of next year. I also recently submitted an application to the Fulbright Commission for a scholarship to go to graduate school for science illustration. To keep tabs on this project and what I’m working on in general, you can find me on instagram @unrefinedmarsupial or on my website, isabellabriganti.com.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
What I would do would really depend on the person visiting I think, but generally speaking, there are a few places that I like to haunt. Downtown, The Denver Art Museum is a favorite of mine, both to peruse and to sit and draw at. Same can be said for the Denver Botanic Gardens and the Museum of Nature and Science. Weathervane Cafe is one of my favorite coffee shops, and is not too far from Twist and Shout, Tattered Cover, the Learned Lemur oddities and tattoo shop and Capitol Hill Books on Colfax. I enjoy hanging around Olde Town Arvada. Lithos is a very cool rock and fossil shop and Hunter Bay Coffee nearby is quite nice, plus the Harkins theater is probably my favorite place to go see movies at. Black and Read on 80th and Wadsworth is an all time favorite place for vinyl and books, and Yak and Yeti off of Ralston is not only very good Nepalese and Tibetan food, but is also in a haunted (?) Victorian era house. Very cool. An ideal day would be spending it going to these spots in any of these areas, with the occasional break to chill at a nearby park for a picnic and chess. I don’t really go out much at night, but when I do, I like to attend shows at local venues or shoot pool.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
There are too many to list individually here, but first and foremost shoutout to my family and my partner for being so supportive of my creative decisions. Without your constant support, I would not have had the confidence to pursue my education in the arts. I’d also like to acknowledge and thank my therapist, for helping me unravel the ideas in my head so that I can make them tangible in the real world. I’d also like to give credit to Franky Scaglione, Ippy Farnam, Melissa Furness, and Rian Kerrane, who taught me everything I know about painting (and things about life, too) A big shoutout to my peers and friends as well- I could not ask for better sounding boards and companions. Love y’all.

Website: https://isabellabriganti.com

Instagram: unrefinedmarsupial

Linkedin: Isabella Briganti

Image Credits
Alishya Swenning