1. Tell us more about your modus operandi of working with waves. Where were you first inspired by waves and how did that evolve?
The first white wall reliefs were everyday objects such as windows, bookcases, fire extinguishers, chairs, which I installed under the skin of the architecture. As if they were objects of memory that still push outward through an organic and invisible membrane, but closely connected to the spatial dimension in which a kind of loss of the object manifests itself. A bit like in the Baroque relief in which the dimension of the sculpture protrudes into the space of the spatial box.
In 2009 I started the Wall Waves series, seeking a different level of abstraction, in a kind of falling in love with the scientific dimension of diagrammatic drawing, the real generator of these sculptures.
It was also a kind of personal reaction to what was happening in architecture, with architects like Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, Greg Lynn, looking for a sculptural form that became as liquid as possible. Architecture itself became a form of sculpture, and I reacted by looking for a direct relationship with the spatial context by working with both Wall Waves and modular steel sculptures that gave me the opportunity to expand and contract the work with the freedom of a plant, of an organism in constant change.
2. Are there any secrets hidden in your works?
The secret is always to seek an autonomous force of the work that does not need too much explanation. To generate a work that thanks to its internal and external nature manages to abstract itself from its own author. Then there are real secrets revealed through technique, linguistic solutions: for example, my series of Wall Waves, comes from scientific observation of the phenomenon of vibrations, which belongs to all physical bodies; these waves reverberate in us and outside us and belong to the stages of solid, liquid, gaseous, sound matter…
I tried to visualize this three-dimensionally by creating reliefs that seem to be generated by the wall itself, as if the skin of the architecture produced an emotional point without a boundary. The result is a true wall sculpture that loses its physical edges to become pure surprise, and hints at a hidden geometry that is always present in nature. Again, these works remain in the neutrality of white living on light and shadow in a pure mental dimension.
3. If you could live inside any work of art, what would it be?
I would probably live inside the spaciousness of James Turrell’s Roden Crater, one of the most beautiful art projects in which earth and sky once again reconcile thanks to the artist’s sensitivity and great ambition, in an out of time dimension in which nature and art come together to generate pure beauty.
I practiced this idea of living in a work with some tree house installations, still in a dimension of close relationship with plants, seasons, the sense of direct relationship with wilderness and utopian form of poetic distance.
4. Out of all the works you’ve created, which one still takes your breath away and why?
All the series are equally important, of course there are conditions for which one form, one installation, one image, has a greater force than others; emotionally, the projects in “collaboration” with trees are the ones where I feel the greatest involvement: it is not a matter of attaching something to a plant by using it as a plinth, as a base, but that of making a “dancing form” in relation to a living body and establishing harmony with it, manifesting a kind of second nature with balance and strength so much so that it becomes an integral part of it and at the same time it maintains a character of autonomy of the sculpture.
5. You call color an “emotional field”. When in your life has color played the biggest role? How did it help you?
I’m been working for many years on an idea of the “neutral” model where the model of reality is deconstructed, distorted and revised on the plane of “being” an object, I almost always used the neutrality tones of gray, white, metal surface, I wanted the form to be the subject and not its surface, with all the references that this on carries with it. But for an artist, color is always an important dimension: after years of neutral color tones palette, I started to look again at pure pigments, spices and in general the saturation of color found in nature, and I looked for subjects and linguistic solutions that would allow me to incorporate the sense of wonder that color brings itself.
I have a great passion for the art of Mark Rothko and Morris Louis and in general toward the American color field in painting. The series of relief paintings I have been working on recently titled “Aeolian Landforms” give me the opportunity to absorb the viewer’s gaze in a profound way. Like a desert, the surface has no limit and the color participates in the movement in a continuous shifting according to the light. To achieve this I decided to use the electrostatic technique of flocking, in which the color is deposited by fibers, is it a thick material and has little to do with traditional glazing and painting. The depth and natural light-absorbing propensity of the material itself help me communicate an idea of the sublime, which I am very interested in in the perception of art.
Rapid Fire
If you could hang or place your work anywhere, where would that be?
I would have a lot of preferences… Can’t we organize a nice moving exhibition among 5-10 different museums..?
Night owl or early bird?
Night owl
Wiener Schnitzel or Ossobuco?
Ossobuco
One album plays on a record in your studio forever – which one?
Quadrophenia, The Who
Black or White?
Black
Tik Tok or Instagram famous?
Instagram, sometimes
Sit next to anyone on a long plane journey – who is it?
My wife
Red wine or Aperol Spritz?
Red wine
Showing your work inside or outside?
Outside, on a tree
After experiencing “Paper Waves”, the viewer turns and the first thing they do is…
Recognize such a vibration in something around them….
Click here to learn more about “Paper Waves”, the limited edition print Art Fix created together with Loris Cecchini.
