THE TRACE WE LEAVE BEHIND
The trace we leave behind is a body of work that must be understood on two different levels. On one side it is a physical study of the definition of the word line. A research that inquiries on its geometrical role and possible meaning, a tangible investigation of its essence and of its boundaries. From a straight line, to a less geometrical manifestation of that same trace all the way to a three dimensional version of that mark.
According to Euclidian geometry lines are infinite series of dots that expand in perpetuity through time and space. If we were to visualise this definition we will suddenly be surrounded by endless, interconnected traces. A hypercomplex spider web of untoungable marks that expands throughout the universe connecting everything within.
This idea of interconnectedness and interdependence is the main focus of my work, it is the bridge that transport us from the physical geometrical study of a line to the message that the line beholds. From being just a thin mark on the surface of something, the line evolves gaining greater meaning and becoming a metaphor for the interrelation that exists among all things, a warning against individualism and a remainder of its unnatural role in nature.
We are often led to believe that science and religion are juxtaposing spheres. That spiritual and mathematical are contrasting scenarios that the left and right side of the brain are in competition rather then in collaboration but the interconnectedness that is inherit to the very primitive tool of geometry, “ the first specie of quantity” is also at the very basis of all Great Oriental philosophies.
Hinduism recognises that the human body is composed of and related to the five elements, and connects each of the elements to one of the five senses. The human nose is related to earth, tongue to water, eyes to fire, skin to air and ears to space. This bond between our senses and the elements is the foundation of our human relationship with the natural world. For Hinduism, nature and the environment are not outside us, not alien or hostile to us. They are an inseparable part of our body. Similarly when Buddha gained enlightenment, it was the realisation that interconnectedness is the true nature of all beings. We are not only connected to other people, but to the air through our breathing and to the universe through light.
These works are the representation of such interconnection. A map, both physical and metaphorical that shows the energy exchange within the environment. The totality of my work is made without paint, ink or any other man made coloring device, it’s rather the outcome of nature’s reaction to its own elements. My collaboration with nature is based on the holistic recognition that all life, all ecosystems on our planet are deeply intertwined. These paint-less paintings are the physical manifestation of such recognition, they are nature’s footprint the outcome of energy exchanges between the artist and the biosphere. The lines, which are carved on oxidised copper( a natural process over which I have limited control), are the representation of the path that each individual engraves trough time and space, they are the trace we leave behind , the mark we make while passing through the cosmic caos that surrounds and that is inherently part of us.