Melting Pots
I have always used materials like a director,
like a theatrical prop-man, like a narrator of stories and tales;
working by memory, seeking to create pathways, labyrinths where I can
encounter a visitor/spectator and then become lost, both of us,
within the work itself, physically as well as psychologically,
in the plurality of perspectives and intricacies of the matter
or the suggested indications.
In forty years I have used fabrics, wood, paper,
words, water (many times), light, photography, metals (including: iron,
bronze, steel, copper, silver, brass, aluminium, lead, cast iron,
ormolu and also gold but very little, as I have followed other paths,
mixing the materials in my melting pots), porcelain, ceramics, terracotta,
refractory brick, slips, glass, mirror, plastic, (including polyester,
polyurethane, polymethyl metacrylic, PVC), marble (granite, sandstone,
gneiss, slate), materials glossy and opaque, objects found and transformed
by soldering, fusing, embossing, assembling; I have always been fascinated
by colour and have succumbed to the temptation of painting, using gloss,
oils, temper, watercolours, acrylics, pastels, chalk, collage. Whenever
possible, I practised engraving, including lithography, silk-screening,
dry-point, etching, aquatint,....and also sound, noise, silence and
emptiness.......; electricity with motors and contraptions, designing
but never depriving myself of the pleasure of restoring artistic and artisan
traditions (or habits). I have used my hands and those of my friends
(I have worked with Scanavino, Ferrari, Tadini, Piccoli, Sangregorio, and
other artists) realising projects together.
I believe I've always sculpted through an expressive,
communicative, aesthetic need for language (at times transgressing techniques)
saving myself, I hope, from becoming a good professional producing artistic goods.
Working in such a dispersive way, I hope
I have avoided becoming a specialist in a genre, so I don't find my
studio transformed into a vast depository of artistic objects,
beautifully packaged, sitting on shelves ready for sale at a predetermined
future price.
