Simona Saladino was born in Palermo on August 9th 1994. She studied at Giuseppe Damiani Almeyda Art School in Palermo, where in 2011/2012 obtained a Master of Art Diploma in the Architecture section. In 2013/2014 attended the Painting Course of the Academy of Fine Arts and Restoration ABADIR in San Martino delle Scale, Monreale (PA). Subsequently she had been enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts in Palermo obtaining the First Level Academic Diploma in Graphic Art in the A.Y. 2017/2018 and the Second Level Academic Diploma in Graphic Art in the A.Y. 2019/2020. During her academic studies, in the A.Y. 2019/2020 she was an expert on the subject at the Chair of 1-2-3 Engraving Techniques, Course of Prof. Sandro Bracchitta; in addition, she has collaborated as a trainee with the Central Institute for Graphics in Rome for which she carried out positions as Engraver, Lithographer, graphic designer and organizer in relation to a cycle of seminars arranged in concert with the Academy of Fine Arts in Palermo. Currently, she’s an expert on the subject at the Chair of Serigraphy (Biennium), Course of Prof. Riccardo Mazzarino from the A.Y. 2020/2021.
During her studies at the School of Graphic Art of the Academy of Fine Arts in Palermo, she had the opportunity to deepen the so-called "experimental" engraving techniques which, that is, do not fall within the sphere of orthodox chalcographic techniques and aim to strongly pictorial graphic results. Among these techniques, collography was the most congenial to her research due to its graphic possibilities which are almost infinite, since the technique allows to model the materials on the support-matrix, to imprint elements and objects as in a frottage, to modulate the signs and the chiaroscuro.
She started by imprinting leaves on different materials; from here was born her first thesis project, entitled Folium, Thesis Supervisor Prof. Sandro Bracchitta, developed in seven engravings in which the leaves are placed at the center of the representation, identified with man: they tell the relationship with nature, the vital condition, the state emotional. She understood that it was an iconographic and technical mediation. The next step was to print the man, with the same methods, exasperating the production and printing technique. Today her project is Human, which is the plastic transposition of human bodies covered with food film: essential footprints in which the use of the film hides the individual, transforming him into an object devoid of specific features, of individuality, commodifiable like meat that we buy at the supermarket.