Alberto Facca’s works speak of human transformation, just like the wood that undertakes a long journey from the mountains to the sea. Each worn, salt-laden, pierced and smoothed surface, crossed by unexpected chromatic variations, bears the marks of time and wounds, of experience and pain, as well as of hope.
Alberto Facca was born in Venice and now lives in the Venetian metropolitan area, in Mirano, where he has his studio. His passion for creativity began in childhood, when he would watch his father, a blacksmith, fascinated by his care for beauty and detail. Over the course of his professional life, he also developed an interest in the design of furnishing objects, experimenting with different materials, including wood, with which he feels a deep affinity.
The artist recounts that in 2016, on the first day of spring, he found a piece of tree wood washed ashore by the sea on a beach in Venice. As he observed it, he began to imagine its journey and to perceive its natural beauty. He decided to try to give a new voice to this “castaway”, transforming it into a sculptural work. Since then, every winter, he has chosen and collected pieces of trees that have travelled through rivers and seas, slowly changing their shape and density, worn by water, sun and wind, marked by the traces of small animals and by the sudden ruptures of their journey.
These pieces of wood become the soul of Alberto Facca’s sculptures. His interventions are light and respectful: he follows their history through touch, preserving as much as possible the silent narrative that emerges from their surfaces, while at the same time seeking their essence. His work also reveals a profound respect for nature and a deep bond with the sea, which slowly and inexorably wears down and transforms matter.
In his hands, wood acquires a new life. Alongside its original history, a new meaning emerges — one that the artist feels had long been hidden within that fragment of existence. He brings it to light, at times also through elements of illumination. Thus, as viewers discover the sculptures with their eyes and hands, sensing their textures and scents, they seem to hear the melody of water, the sound of the wind, to feel the marks of fire and the taste of earth and salt. Above all, they perceive the unstoppable vital force of nature in constant transformation, to which human beings are deeply and inevitably bound, even though they often choose to forget it.
The journey of these castaways, which Alberto Facca transforms into sculptures, represents the journey of each of us. Time may tear and wear away our surfaces, yet deep within we preserve what truly matters: our most precious memories, our most intense emotions, and the reasons for which life is worth living.
