How Claudia Sistelli Weaves Nature and Dreams into Every Piece of Art
In this interview for the Arts to Hearts Project, we sit down with Claudia Sistelli—an artist whose creative path weaves together traditional art, environmental awareness, and cutting-edge technology. Claudia opens up about her early days at an experimental art school in Rome, her passion for nature, and how her background in landscape architecture led her to explore digital storytelling and generative AI.
She shares how nostalgia and futurism play key roles in her visual work, how storytelling breathes life into her AI-generated pieces, and how her blog Greenthousand continues to explore the connection between people, culture, and the environment. Through her words, we learn about her evolving creative process and the more profound meaning she finds in bridging the past and future through art.
This conversation is inspired by how one artist uses memory and innovation to tell new visual stories. It reminds us that the most potent art often begins with curiosity, connection, and the courage to experiment.
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My academic journey in visual art began in my formative years, during my enlistment in an experimental art high school in Rome. During this period, I embarked on a journey of exploration and experimentation with different techniques and media. The development of an interest in art in all its forms, with a particular emphasis on narrative, film and visual art, occurred well before the recommendation of experience with digital image processing techniques employing generative artificial intelligence.
The potential of this tool has been demonstrated through its use in creating visual works, incorporating the collective imagination, personal vision and textual storytelling. These parallels are without previous in the annals of art history, and the opportunity to engage in such experimentation while leveraging my competences within the art world is a profound source of inspiration The background is in landscape and environmental studies, a fact that has informed the establishment of a personal blog entitled Greenthousand, which was founded in 2017. This blog aims to explore the relationship between the environment, people and culture.
My artistic approach is currently in an exploratory phase, made particularly significant using generative artificial intelligence, which represents a rapidly evolving and transforming tool. However, surrealism and figurative art in their various forms can be found in my works. In all art created through generative artificial intelligence, the collective scenario of perception and human artistic and cultural baggage takes on a significantly different specific weight compared to a work entirely created through a physical medium, such as tempera, for example. This is a distinctive feature of this medium.
1. Your journey began at an experimental art school in Rome—how did that early environment shape your creative identity?
The school years at the experimental artistic high school provided the foundation for my creative ideas, which are rooted in practical experience with traditional tools, including painting, drawing and collage, in various forms. The freehand drawing was an effective means of expression for me. The use of saturated colours, as found in oil pastels, and the vibrant shades of watercolours, has expanded my knowledge and experience in visual art. At that time, digital art was not yet a significant part of my creative process. My education in art history and other scientific and humanistic subjects gave me the necessary knowledge to understand the purpose behind my artistic creations. In particular, the immaculate colours of Giotto’s works and the surrealist and hyperrealist figurative art of all eras profoundly impacted my creative sensibilities.
The capacity to narrate must be congruent with the linguistic aptitude that is congruent with the instrument.
2. What inspired you to merge your background in landscape architecture with digital storytelling and generative art?
I enrolled in the Faculty of Landscape Architecture when the interest in landscape painting and the environment was not so strong in Italy, other European countries or the world. My fascination with nature and the environment has been a lifelong interest. For humankind, the relationship with nature is nothing short of extraordinary; just like our relationship with the universe, it is shrouded in mystery. The concept of “man in nature” – understood as a natural landscape – has found a one-metre measurement with another, forming a channel of authentic communication through which to express himself, and an indissoluble relationship.
Even art is founded upon bonds that cannot be broken, such as the bond with the search for truth. I have encountered beauty in its purest form in both art and nature, a rarity in other settings. In my professional work, I explore the relationship between humans and the environment, understood as a combination of anthropogenic, anthropised and natural elements. Generative art can examine and interrogate data about the collective imaginative and simulational baggage during the image processing stage. This process enables the creation of a comprehensive context that facilitates the comprehension of one’s vision.
This represents a significant challenge in determining the role of art in the current historical period. I believe that generative artificial intelligence has the potential to transform our understanding of traditional art, offering a new perspective on its immense value. This technology can facilitate a more profound comprehension of art, paving the way for creating new and captivating forms seamlessly integrated into our daily lives. As a digital content creator specialising in text, I have integrated storytelling techniques into image processing. These techniques are currently powerful for shaping image content using generative artificial intelligence.
3. Your work explores nostalgia and futurism—what draws you to this duality, and how do you balance it visually?
In circumstances where indications of the future are evident, there may also be indications of events that have already transpired. The juxtaposition of these two elements, the future and nostalgia, results in a blend that enhances the image with movement and significance. Futurism is an artistic movement that originated in Italy at the beginning of the 20th century and influenced other international stylistic currents, including Dadaism, Surrealism, Art Deco and Cubism. During that period, the parliament of a time that foreshadows and encompasses two world wars, art wields significant cultural influence.
A remarkable effervescence emerges, giving rise to numerous artists who leave an indelible mark on the annals of art history. From a stylistic perspective, I find several elements particularly appealing. These include the lines’ clarity, the colours’ square shape, the interplay between realistic and surreal elements, and the sense of anticipation for the dreamlike world. This period of significant artistic development coincided with a transition to modern art. However, “futurism” can also be associated with fantasy and imagination in a more contemporary context. Generally, the content of films and comics is similar to that of the fairy tale. This is a universal message in the context of image literature.
4. How has working with generative AI changed your relationship with the creative process compared to traditional mediums?
The creative process involving AI differs significantly from traditional artistic methods. While the cost of the materials is indeed lower, the time and dedication required for the projects are similar. Given the numerous variables involved in developing an image using AI, and the rapid evolution of the technology, it is essential to adapt one’s skills to align with these evolving standards. This ensures an understanding of the potential impact of one’s vision in the context of these upgrades.
In both art and nature, I have encountered beauty in its purest form, a rarity to be found in other settings.
Claudia Sistelli
5. You launched Greenthousand to explore the links between environment, culture, and innovation—how do those themes appear in your visual work today?
The environment in which the elements of my images are inserted is often anthropised, centred on references to different eras and stylistic currents. The remarkable composition of my works is frequently characterised by the intricate interplay between multiple narrative layers, which are intricately woven into the fabric of everyday scenarios. Innovation is conveyed through models of reality that draw on reflections and premonitions from each other.
6. What role does storytelling play in your AI-generated pieces, and how do you see that evolving as the technology advances?
In the contemporary context, storytelling is pivotal in producing works created with AI. This phenomenon is part of a process that involves the disintegration and subsequent reintegration of the entity into the medium, depending on the specific AI technology being utilised. Creating a work using the text-to-image technique, which extrapolates the indications for creating an image from a text, for example, can be very complex. The capacity to narrate must be congruent with the linguistic aptitude and the instrument. The platform will inevitably evolve in line with technological advances. Using storytelling in my artistic oeuvre is paramount in establishing context, situation, and stylistic decisions, in addition to their relevance to my creative vision.
Claudia Sistelli’s artwork is a thoughtful blend of tradition, technology, and storytelling. She invites us to consider the deep connections between the human experience, nature, and the digital world through her exploration of generative AI, surrealism, and environmental themes. Her journey from hands-on painting to AI-generated imagery shows us that art is not confined to one form—it evolves with us. From nostalgia to futurism, from Rome’s art classrooms to modern digital platforms, Claudia’s work reminds us that creativity is both a mirror of the past and a window into what’s possible.
We’ve learned that her art is more than aesthetics—it’s about searching for truth, honouring memory, imagining futures, and finding new languages to express timeless ideas.
To learn more about Claudia, click the following links to visit her profile.
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