An Italian artist paints stunning watercolor designs in her sink to make hand-washing more beautiful
Darcy Schild
- Marta Grossi is an artist and creative director who was quarantined in Milan, Italy, when she found an innovative way to make hand-washing a magical experience.
- Grossi was running low on her traditional painting paper, so she started applying watercolors directly to the sink in her bathroom.
- She let each of her sink designs fill the sink for 24 hours before rinsing away the colorful art.
- Grossi spoke to Insider about how she turned a dreaded appliance into a way to make fleeting but beautiful pieces of art.
Marta Grossi recalled the day she first picked up her watercolor brush at the bathroom sink — it was the first week of lockdown orders in Milan, Italy, which she described as "apocalyptic."
Grossi recalled creating her first painting after returning home from the grocery store, the one place (aside from pharmacies or to seek medical care) where citygoers in Milan were allowed to go at the beginning of lockdown orders, according to local government rules at the time.
"Everything felt apocalyptic in the city. I was hearing helicopters 24/7," said Grossi. "The alarm was extreme."
"I was a bit upset coming back from my errand, and I just wanted to wash everything off," she said.
As she was washing her hands, she noticed her small watercolor tray sitting on the sink ledge, which she had used earlier in the day.
"Suddenly, I don't know what happened, but I started to paint," she said. "I started with branches and then filled in colors of a cherry blossoms. In that moment, I lost all track of time, and all my thoughts about what was going on washed away."
She said at first, the whimsical pops of color made her feel like she was staying at a hotel or using a fancy restaurant bathroom.
Grossi's on-a-whim painting made her smile each time she returned to the sink to wash her hands, she said, so the concept stuck.
"I started leaving the designs in the sink overnight and not washing [my hands] in that sink until the next day," Grossi said.
The sink also became a canvas of sorts for Grossi, who was starting to run out of her small supply of watercolor paper.
Grossi had arrived at the Milan apartment in early 2020 with the bare minimum of personal belongings and limited art supplies, she said, as she was planning on staying for a short amount of time.
She began to run low on her supply of traditional drawing and painting paper, which she said she was saving to use for client projects and for pieces that were donated to a hospital.
That's when the apartment's bathroom sink came into play.
"It was about being able to use my hands to create something that was familiar, but also new to me," Grossi said of the sink watercolor method.
From animals to nature scenes and quotes, Grossi let her imagination soar.
Grossi brought the outdoors inside at a time when she and many others in Italy and around the world were forced to stay at home.
To create her watercolor masterpieces, Grossi wipes the sink so it's completely dry and uses various brush sizes to create detail.
Grossi said it's important to start with a dry surface or else the watercolor paints get hard to control, but that the challenge of a unique canvas made her artwork even more enjoyable.
"It became my way to be present," she said. "These are the instruments I knew how to use to stay in the moment and to not let things that are out of my control affect me."
Grossi says her sink designs are an example of temporary art, which, to her, reflects the importance of cherishing life in the moment.
"I try to remind myself that nothing lasts forever," Grossi said.
By washing the designs away, it marks a new day, Grossi said, and "mirrors what's going on in the real world — that there are beautiful moments even in the scary and unknown."
At the very least, the unexpected designs have been one way to make constant hand-washing more enjoyable, Grossi said.
"We're washing our hands constantly. I was hearing reminders to wash our hands billions of times, and like many people, I started hating doing this," the artist said.
She continued: "So I translated this into something beautiful. If I wash my hands, I see flowers, I see the sea, I see animals. This changed my perspective on what was becoming so routine."
Grossi's ideas continue to blossom even though she's now left the apartment where she spent months in quarantine.
Grossi said she hopes to someday create an exhibit full of painted sinks inspired by her quarantine ritual because, in her opinion, sinks and the monotony of hand-washing will "always be a symbol of what we all went through collectively" during the pandemic.
"It's not only the story of me painting in my sink, but also of everybody who found new ways of living life," said Grossi.
More of Marta Grossi's work can be found on Instagram and via her online portfolio.
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