“Real-time life events and the emotions that come with them”: Frankie Colamarino’s visual diary

Date
14 July 2017

“The difference between writing in an actual journal and what I’m doing through the videos is that if you read my physical journal, you would know exactly what I’m going through or feeling,” explains Frankie Colamarino, founder of Frankie Studio and full-time creative director. As a means of finding a place to locate his thoughts in abstract measures, Frankie has found a personal release through the form of video collage.

“I’ve been collecting and archiving video footage for as long as I can remember – everything from royalty-free footage, to home movies or other peoples’ personal submissions to me,” he says. His process reflects an organic method, where planning is in some ways prohibited to allow a natural and meaningful flow. “Real-time life events and the emotions that come with them” are the words that Frankie uses to describe the inspiration and themes behind his creations. “Nothing is planned in advance. I typically just sit down when I’m feeling indifferent or happy, and I dig through my archives and create.”

Considered as a journal entry, rather than an art or side project, each upload represents a personal moment in the artist’s life. One that particularly resonates with Frankie is that which echoes his parental situation growing up: the video was “meant to pay homage to my mother on Father’s Day,” he says. Featuring a father-like figure, slouched with beverage in hand, the character is artfully paired with a mother and child hovering over the male’s identity. Whether this embodies a thought in the father’s mind or perhaps to signify the child’s family roots, his imagery evokes multiple thoughts and emotions that are ambiguously linked to the creator.

“While these video pieces are accessible to everyone, the origin of each is highly personal,” Frankie tells It’s Nice That. “I’m inspired by positive or negative learnings of singular personal experiences…my goal with each entry is to be able to look back and decode the image or video into an instant memory.”

Despite the fact that there are no on-going themes, each piece relates to one another on an extremely intimate level. Although this may not be obvious to the audience, Frankie intends to keep it as a private spectacle of his life. “I’ve dealt with severe dyslexia since I was a child, so I’ve had to rely on a largely visual memory to store and access my experiences,” he says. “I have no idea what the next day, week or month holds.”

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About the Author

Ayla Angelos

Ayla is a London-based freelance writer, editor and consultant specialising in art, photography, design and culture. After joining It’s Nice That in 2017 as editorial assistant, she was interim online editor in 2022/2023 and continues to work with us on a freelance basis. She has written for i-D, Dazed, AnOther, WePresent, Port, Elephant and more, and she is also the managing editor of design magazine Anima. 

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