Flavia Testa

An outsider artist is talented, self-taught and rarely sells or shows  art while alive, but who garners interest and mystery from the outside world that they live in. 

Flavia Testa’s story isn’t about easy answers. It’s about living with the questions. Found in a box as a newborn in Tehran during the 1970s, she was adopted by an Italian architect, part of the influential Testa family. She travelled around the world with her UN parents, never in one place too long, always observing and listening. This beginning, filled with unknowns, shaped her into an artist who embraces complexity and raw emotion.

Her art, like her life, is a mirror reflecting honesty and a fearless approach to communication. It’s a blend of raw vulnerability and powerful expression, sometimes light, sometimes deeply moving, but always provocative. Flavia’s work invites you to explore the spaces where certainty fades, and the beauty of the unanswered resides. Art is a force and a fortress that protects  and reveals our lives. 

Main mediums are ink, paint, pencil. Sometimes also photography accompanied by elements of linguistics, symbols, signs, words, images in her larger than life creations that are made for gallery shows and events.

Flavia enjoys selling her art online through social media and digital formats. Her work can be in spaces and places far and wide at a reasonable price. She has spear-headed her own online art calls that are creative and unique, to sell and collaborate with her fans and collectors. Flavia believes that art should be accessible and available to as many people as possible, everywhere.

Iranian born, Italian Canadian artist Flavia Testa works both in Canada and Italy.

* photographer @raoulmanuelschnell