My work is methodical and based on the repetition of the same gestures. Alongside other projects, my main interest is in paper and writing, which in my work is not connected to words, but becomes a pictorial sign. Particularly in my Notturni series, started in 2012, I take the repetition of the gesture, which disappears by dint of addition, to the extreme. Through repetition I create full and smooth surfaces of color, made entirely with ballpoint pens, where every sign almost disappears.
My main references, while aware of the masters who preceded me in this type of expressive mode, are Irma Blank, an German-Italian artist known for her asemantic writing, and Mark Rothko for the strong evocative power of his work, but of course my gaze has always been fascinated by a certain type of Oriental aesthetics, probably the one that is most conveyed in the West, the one made up of synthesis, essentiality and formal cleanliness.
__
For years now, I have concentrated daily on the ascetic practice of erasing all traces of white from the sheets of paper, with a relentless gesture of covering them with strokes of a ballpoint pen. This erasure, by successive layers, gives rise to a new iridescent-oily uniformity, which only the ink thus treated is able to restore. From these pages, however, no faithful transcription emerges, but rather an unprecedented revelation. This transcended writing is almost a performative act, repeated to the point of making any stroke indistinguishable in a repetition that is almost a prayer, a litanic chant that reveals a new form of relationship with Time and the World.
__
How, however, can this private gesture, made in the isolation of the studio, address the collective? The single result is composed in sequences of sheets, which multiply this prayer into a cathartic and therapeutic mantra for my anxieties. The intimate dialogue with the transcendent then becomes a collective ritual when these visual litanies are received and exhibited in public venues.
Far from being nihilistic and solipsistic, then, the reiteration of my erasing gesture has as its aim access to a relationship with a tame Time, which favours two regenerative phenomena in the artist and in the 'observing' community: the overcoming of anguish over Death and the approach to the Ultimate Truths of Existence. These concepts have always been the prerogative of Religion, a sphere to which the anthropologist René Girard traces the origin of human culture, thanks to the invention of a collective rituality, which has now disappeared, preventing imitative violence.
To the lack of plurality of ritual in today's narcissistic society, I attempt to remedy this with my visual antiphons. These tangible invocations presuppose the individual's awareness of having to oppose a frenetic time, which condemns society to a frantic race towards death, with the aim of regaining control of the time available to each individual, eschewing both the illusion of having eternity at one's disposal and the drift of wasting life in immobility.
It is poignant for me to observe this humanity that truly contemplates death with no other horizon, or conversely reacts to the inexorable passing of the days by scrambling to 'produce' like automatons, in each case depriving life of an intrinsic value.
I try to curb both neurotic breathlessness and tragic passivity by contrasting them with my own formal search for a measured action rooted in solid psychological and anthropological foundations (Marcel Granet, Marcel Mauss, René Girard, James Hillman), on the in-depth study of neuroscience (Antonio Damasio) and the history of religions (Walter F. Otto, Hervé Clerc).
To draw a formula of my own to quench the pervasive sickness of living, I also have among my theoretical references the volume "Disappearance of rituals. A Topology of the Present' (2021) by the Korean Byung-Chul Han, who together with the aforementioned Girard, describes the consequences of the elimination of collective rituals in the present context. "At the root of depression," Han writes in this regard, "is an inordinate self-referentiality. Completely unable to step outside ourselves and overcome ourselves by projecting ourselves into the world, we encapsulate ourselves. The world disappears. One turns in on oneself with a tormenting sense of emptiness'. An emptiness that I try, tirelessly, to fill more and more, training my hand to the loop of movement and my mind to the vertigo of an open space - according to the Middle Eastern concept of emptiness - to be explored day after day. My Nocturnes thus provide viewers with thresholds of entry to another dimension, making manifest the alternative of a slow, harmonious and sustainable action, as opposed to the distortions of the accelerated, ego-driven and dangerously alienating present.
SOLO SHOWS
2023
Notturni,
galleria Giovanni Bonelli, Pietrasanta, Italy
Il crepuscolo degli uomini,
curated by Beatrice Benedetti, with the collaboragtion of IAGA contemporary art, Muzeul de Arta, Cluj Napoca, Romania
2021
Érebos,
curated by Camilla Remondina and Melania Raimondi, in collaboration with Iaga contemporary art, Fondazione l'Arsenale, Iseo
2020
Nights like Lights,
curated by L.Conti, Poliart Contemporary, Milano (catalog)
2019
Rivelazioni
from an idea of A.Perobelli,
curated by Ilaria BIgnotti, Iaga Contemporary Art Gallery, Cluj-Napoca, Romania (catalog)
Le Forme del Tempo
curated by di M.Maccarinelli and Kevin McManus, Fondazione Leonesia, Brescia
2016
Eadem Mutata Resurgo
from an idea by A.Perobelli, curated by W.Bonomi, Iaga Contemporary Art Gallery, Cluj-Napoca, Romania (catalog)
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2023
>Be the difference with art 2023, finalists exhibition, Museo Canova, Possagno, Italy
>IX VAF PPRIZE, finalists exhibition, Castello Estense, Ferrara, Italy
2022
>COMBAT PRIZE XIII Edition
finalists exhibition, Museo Giovanni Fattori, Livorno, Italy
>MILLENNIALS
curated by Ilaria Bignotti, with Alice Faloretti, Manuel Gardina, Francesca Longhini, Giovanni Rossi, AAB, Brescia
>Constanza Kramer and Silvia Inselvini, duo show at Galerie Benjamin Eck, Munich, Germany
>ANÀSTASI Turbamenti, immersioni, attese, rinascite. Armida Gandini, Silvia Inselvini, Camilla Marinoni, Miriam Montani, a cura di Marina Dacci, Matteo Galbiati, Leonardo Regano, Livia Savorelli, Nadia Stefanel, Raffaele Quattrone, Galleria Giovanni Bonelli , Pietrasanta, Italy
>IX VAF PRIZE finalists exhibition, Stadtgalerie Kiel, Germany
>TAKE YOUR TIME, TONGYEONG TRIENNALE
curated by Daniel Kapelian, Tongyeong Triennale, Tongyeong, South Korea
>PARATISSIMA TALENTS, ARTiglieria Con/temporary Art Center, Torino, Italy
2021
>XV Arte Laguna finalists exhibition, Venezia Arsenale, Italy
>SANATORIUM curated by M.C.D’Angelo and S.Maietta, Paratissima, winner of Best N.I.C.E artist 2021and Best Talent Prize 2021, Torino, Italy
>ULTRAROMANTICISMO curated by the collective Ricognizioni sull’Arte, Palazzo Ducale Pavullo nel Frignano, Modena, Italy
>BEN ORMENESE E I SUOI TEMPI curated by Leonardo Conti, Municipal Art Gallery of Gaeta, Latina, Italy
>THE CIRCLE curated by CICA Museum, Gimpo, South Korea
2020
>Rilevamenti2, curated by Bruno Corà, with V.Catricalà, T.Evangelista, A.Iori, A.Tecce, M.Tonelli, CaMusAC, Cassino
>Rigenerazioni, curated by Ilaria Bignotti, Mauro Corradini, Giovanna Galli, Anna Lisa Ghirardi, Giampaolo Guiotto, Fausto Lorenzi, Galleria AAB, Brescia
>GestoZero, Istantanee 2020, from an idea of Maurizio Donzelli and curated by Ilaria Bignotti insieme ad ACME Art Lab, Giorgio Fasol and Matteo Galbiati. Brescia, Bergamo, Cremona
2019
>Geminantis ,with L.Renna. Curated by M.Raimondi, with the supervision of I.Bignotti, Spazio Contemporanea, Brescia (catalog).
2018
>Generations, curated by Ilaria Bignotti, with S.Fineschi, N.Genn, S.Infranco, S.Ko, V.Vázquez, Marignana Arte, Venezia (catalog).
2015
>Biennale Giovani Monza, curated by A.Bernardini, I.Bignotti, F.Cavallucci, C.Cerritelli, E.Grazioli (catalog).
>Ricerche nel quotidiano, A.Francolino, Afran e Silvia Inselvini a confronto, curated by Andrea Dall’Asta SJ, I.Bignotti, M.Galbiati, M.Tavola, Galleria san Fedele, Milano (catalog).
2014
>La creazione, Visual Art Prize San Fedele 2013/2014, curated by A. Dall’Asta SJ, Galleria San Fedele Milano, tutors and curators special mention, Galleria San Fedele, Milano (catalog)
>Learned by Heart,
with Airin Toscani, curated by Elisabetta Scigliano, Galleria Adiacenze, Bologna
2012
>E quindi uscimmo a riveder le stelle: il viaggio, finalist
Visual Art Prize San Fedele 2012, curated by Andrea Dall’Asta S.I., Galleria San Fedele, Milano, (catalog)
>L’uomo- le tradizioni” Biennale Roncaglia Prize under25 2012, San Felice sul Panaro,
curated by I.Bignotti, A.Mariotti, E.Modena, V.Rossi, M.Scotti, D.Tozzi, Teatro Comunale, San Felice sul Panaro
AWARDS
2023
>Be the difference with art 2023, winner
>Premio Nocivelli XV, finalist
2022
>XIII Combat prize finalist with the work Notturni
2021
>XV Arte Laguna Finalist with the work Notturni
>PARATISSIMA winner of Best Talent 2021 and Best N.I.C.E Artist 2021
2020
>IX VAF Prize finalist with the work Notturni
>Arteam Cup VI, finalist with the work Notturni, winner of Bonelli Arte Prize
>Ducato Prize, finalist with the work Notturni
