The Quadratura dello Stretto serie is inspired by Martin Heidegger’s Geviert and Christian Norberg-Schulz’s Genius loci. It portrays my outlook on
the geo-historical intricate
and centuries-old tissue of the Strait of Messina and its surroundings, far
from today’s inconsistent and defaced existing condition of the area. Each of
the three paintings represent a specific area and its relationship with the
Mediterranean sea. All together they complete an overall
vision of my perception of
the place.
In Quadratura dello Stretto #2 two strips of land knock down the
enceinte between sea and land, plunging their way into the waters, meet and,
joining together, they mold a pond on its own right, a cradle
of all the intangible features of these waters. The geo-historical origin of
the Strait is both unity and detachment, death and birth: is something which
could not be translated into anything other than the coming of a new core to
seal the togetherness of
both shores and to preserve their legacy. Something is ending and something
begins. Birth itself represents such a transition before stepping into a new
chapter, a period of instability and change that will affect something forever.
On my journey across the mediterranean depths I stumbled upon philosophy,
mythology, anthropology, literature, archaeology and architecture. They collectively depict
the essence of its unique genius loci. They’ve always existed,
they've just been waiting to come out and take over. The space exist in the real world as a physical
location, but is also present in our cognition and psychological experience.
Although all of this was geographically
close to me, unwittingly, I was as wary of the uncertainty of the
sea as Heidegger had been. Pretty sure this is what they call serendipity.
For me it awakened a new consciousness, like the birth of a new and
greater awareness of the environment I grew up in.
