The
painting belongs to the series of the same name Anche
l'acqua del fiume ha bevuto le rive,
which has its roots in the need to free painting from the obligation
of an idea that justifies the paintings and therefore concentrates on
the pictorial act in self. Here the gesture acquires a fundamental
importance, in the sense of the body interacting with the surrounding
space and with the surface of the canvas, in function of the stain
and the sign, therefore of the painting. And it is precisely in this
sense that the research moves, trying to understand how a line and a
stain-color can exist
as such, evading the pretext of a figure (even abstract) that,
imposing itself on the rest, wants to make order on the pictorial
surface: the search for color, the density of the pictorial paste and
its drafting, the encounter with the surface, the gesture, in order
to paint a stain-color or
a line. Persist in this pursuit for a long time - coincided. due to
the pandemic, with the return and stay in my country of origin in
Sardinia, after so many years spent outside - it implies preparing
oneself for everyday life according to a certain rhythm, which
therefore influences the perception of a rediscovered place and
reality. At this point the pictorial act is tied in a double knot
with everything that goes outside of it but that is involved in it,
that is, the surrounding reality and the new space of sensitivity
that opens up in relation to it.
This is how the paintings welcome
the suggestion of places, lights, noises, atmospheres without however
being the didactic or symbolic representation: if the background, the
stain-color suggest something else by themselves, they do so in an
implicit and evocative way. The title, in turn, far from being the
literal translation of the paintings, has no direct relationship with
them but rather moves similarly to them. Anche l'acqua del
fiume ha bevuto le rive” (Even the water of the river has drunk the
banks), is a verse with a strong
imaginative and evocative power, extrapolated from the poem La
grappa a Settembre by Cesare
Pavese, which is part of the Lavorare stanca
collection. This volume, encountered during the aforementioned
period, has certainly unconsciously influenced the perception of my
place of origin and everything that returning to it entailed, merging
in some way into the pictorial work; meaning that painting will
always be first of all painting, and that despite this, or perhaps
precisely because of this, it will never be separated or detached
from reality in a broad sense, even when it appears to be centered on
an exclusive formal research.
