I was born in Italy in 1967, and lived for many years in Brazil with my family. In this country I graduated in Architecture. When I returned to Italy I decided to follow my artistic inclinations by becoming a decorative painter.
The atelier I founded together with my husband, Walter Cipriani,
also an artist, had as its address one of the most fascinating areas
of Rome, near Piazza Navona, and there clients arrived who for years commissioned us to work in the most varied pictorial styles and
on all types of surfaces.
I worked a lot in my studio but also on building sites decorating ceilings, walls and furniture for both Italian clients and prestigious foreign clients.
Over the years, driven by an insatiable curiosity, I have done a lot of research on pictorial materials specializing in ancient traditional techniques.
My personal style in designing and painting ornaments in the “Grotesque” style using egg tempera, caught the attention of a French publisher who invited me to write a book on the subject: “Art et techniques de la grotesque” - Editions Vial
The success of the book led me to be invited to hold Master Classes in Italy, Belgium, France, the United States and Japan for hundreds of students and to organize some myself in Rome.
In 2018 I started a collaboration, together with my husband Walter Cipriani, with the international artist Kerstin Bratsch. For her I did a color research on ancient pigments and I created a special tempera based on ancient traditional recipes.
I developed a series of colors that were then used for the
walls of the rooms that housed her works:
2018 - Fondazione Memmo, Rome
2019 - MoMA, NY
2022 - Venice Biennale (Venice)
After many years working as a decorator I felt the desire to combine all this with a production of oil paintings and gouache on paper of naturalistic inspiration to offer a more intimate and personal vision of my work. You can find them on my personal website:
https://www.carolinadayalavalva.it/Paper is my favorite medium, I like the consistency and the sound that the brush stroke produces on its surface and it reminds me of the immediacy of the preparatory cartoons used in decoration. Over the years my creative path has been further enriched, adding skills in the field of illustration and textile design to my curriculum. I created an entire collection of scarves inspired by the travels of the Victorian painter Marianne North, for the Innbamboo company:
https://innbamboo.it/categoria-prodotto/foulard-bamboo/seta/I also collaborated with the German company: Zoeppritz, designing a collection that celebrated 180 years of a long history of producing blankets of the highest quality. Together with Walter we carry on this project of "Pottery Roma", I take care of painting the vases and sometimes designing their shapes. A new experience that I am happy to add to all those I have done so far and that opens up new horizons for me.