My artistic path never included religious themes as such..
When the parish priest asked me to create the altar and other works for the Madonna Incoronata Shrine in Apricena I was very perplexed..
After a few moments of uncertainty, everything was clear to me. I realised that although my artistic investigation was laic and based on the increasing reduction of the weight of my subjects, it was not too distant from the quest for spirituality and the need to go beyond the material aspect of life, concepts at the basis of all religions..
Once found a shared base at content level, I needed to find one at formal level. I conceived the altar as a parallelepiped partially covered by a laced white sheet. It is through the transparency of the lace, the chiaroscuro of the folds and the traces of ironing that I decided to convey the impression of lightness, the reduction of weight that is the feature of my artistic objective and the purpose of each and every catholic.
There is only one way of achieving this result, that is optical illusion and extreme realism at the same time, a contrast between reality and fiction. The covering sheet shall look like real cotton and the lace like real lace. The trick of deceit. From the form one achieves the sought-after concept..
The construction of the ambo involved being forced to respect the iconography imposed by precise liturgic canons: I had to represent an angel pointing with his finger to the word of Christ. On top of sticking to an image “imposed to me” I also had to make sure the ambo was consistent with the formal and conceptual contents. I decided then to ensure lightness by alternating very realistic details to dissolving elements in order to give an impression of evanescence to the whole ambo..
My purpose for the throne was also to transform the physical and visual weight of a block of stone into the lightness of drapery. I tried to avoid banality in the creation of the four Dedication Crosses, representing the four Evangelists, by transforming the icons of the four Saints into transparent lace.
Altar
Apricena Limestone
