Knots springs from frustration with flat canvas constraints. These jute three dimensional objects/paintings, or painted objects are painted with acrylics and/or oils. Some hang from the ceiling or away from the wall, projecting shadows, some are meant sit on a flat surface . They echo my previous work, Imprese (2023) but also have a relation with the previous work Implosions (2021-22) .
With this body of work I explore the interplay between inside and outside and the theme of the double. Through the transition of the internal surface to the external, in a continuous loop I explore time/space relation and the ambiguity and tight connection between internal and external worlds. This relation is true in a small scale with our own intimate world and the relation with the outside and others, but also on a larger scale between neighborhoods and the city, the city and the State, a State and the global community
On the formal side the importance of colors in these works ties them strongly to abstract painting.
This process also enables me to repurpose elements from previous projects that didn't turn out as expected. These elements still hold the energy from their original creation. I incorporate them into new works, blending them with fresh paint and shapes.
IMPRESE are inspired by renaissance visual constructions that go by the same name, Imprese. They include images, and words and they may have a shape that remind emblems. They are meant to embody a person, half revealed and half concealed in a very erudite excercise. I was very intrigued by these mysterious images, and I wanted to create a similar object that conveyed that mysteriousness together with a sense of purpose.
Implosions is a series of large works on paper developed during 2021-23. It started as a small scale of inks and watercolors during lockdown and developed in a larger scale project back in a studio setting. The original drive was to paint a black core, a magmatic center, a black infinite hole that sucked all the energy in, in contrast with a more rarefied and luminous surrounding. It was both a metaphor for my feelings at the time and a solution out. I followed the attraction to colors, the sensuality of the materials, and my desire to see something beautiful yet very intense and energetic. During the process of shifting on a larger scale a new technique and new meaning arose. In the aftermath it occurred to me that these shapes remind me of some squares in Apulia, Italy, structured asymmetrically but whose space feels extremely harmonious yet not predictable very in tune with my post pandemic need of physical and mental freedom. Paper is a surface that retains and reveals the history of the interactions occurring on it, a very vital but extremely challenging quality. My actions and afterthoughts are exposed on the surface, connecting me to the viewer who can retrace my steps. The result of the interactions occurring between the materials establish a base for me to start a dialogue with objectivity and randomness and find my solution and meaning.Looking for the sweet spot between chaos and balance is my drive and challenge.
This body of work explores the logic of violence through a revisitation of Goya’s Tauromaquias and other bull’s images.
While notable Spanish painters like Goya and Picasso have famously depicted the bull fight in their works, fascination with the subject goes beyond the popularity of a game that is emblematic of a national culture. The bull is a universal metaphor. When on display in the arena, the bull is exposed to everybody’s gaze, mockery and hate. His destiny is either to be killed or to provide humans with entertainment through his struggle to survive.
Who, in his or her life, has not felt at one time or another to be center of everybody’s gaze, mockery and hate, in the position of being a victim, a scapegoat.
In Goya’s Tauromaquias the bull is a victim, but is also often the winner. Goya seems to take the bull’s side. By depicting various bullfights scenes, Goya exposes the infantile and perverted enjoyment humans have in seeing others suffer, yet, at the same time, reveals their own internal suffering.
In both Goya’s etchings and in the reality of the corrida, the bull attacks indiscriminately reacting to a threat, and acts consequently. The bull is put in the position of being attacked for reasons he cannot understand and his random reaction is logical and justified. This depiction of a violent reaction seemed to me a good starting point as a metaphor to explore ethics of violence.
One side of this work is my being on the bull’s side, because he represents the victim, so I tend to depict him a a winner over human stupidity. But looking at these images, I could not help thinking of the randomness of terrorist attacks, where violence is applied indiscriminately, killing innocent victims, like a raging bull does. It feels like a crazy nonsense, an act of a lunatic. Yet the similarity of reactions brought me to think that only somebody feeling under the threat of his /her very existence could react , or plan to act in such a way.
Unlike a bull, a human being under a non immediate life threat, still has the possibility to apply ethical judgments, to direct and channel his or her reaction and response to a situation.
The question is that of what brings a person to give up an ethical position, at the core of a subject in relation to other subjects, in favor of an indiscriminate violent act aimed to kill anybody, and in doing so erasing the particularity of the other subjectivity but also his own?
This series was developed in 2019 amidst the migration crisis unfolding in the Mediterranean seas. Being Italian and following closely the news, I felt particularly impacted by it. Each painting explores a condition related to migrations, and its consequences.
Some paintings are interpretations of other artist's work, artists that I particularly admire.
Part of a series of charcoal drawings on Braille embossed magazine paper executed mostly with frottage technique.
The fascination with me mistery of the content of the page, prompted me to touch it , leave my own mark . I started wit rubbing the page on a board covered with charcoal, and then using some strings or objects to introduce some foreign shapes.
This serie is executed by mean of patterned materials ( plastic tiles) used to collect the paint and apply it on the canvas.The title Paths refers to the idea of leaving an imprint creating a path. Creating these paintings searching my path through the overlapping layers.
This serie is titled "Identities". Each piece has his own identity but can be part of a serie, a dyptic, or a tryptic, or single. They are executed using overlapping and different tools techniques, overlapping mylar with paint, overlapping wet paintings to one another or using dented spatulas.
The "identity " of the piece is its texture, its color, its mood. Yet the relate to one another and their "mood" changes depending on on the interactions.
